#this is either really funny or really really bac

[eltonjohndenver]

simian and grogfunkel songlist

-me is rock

-sound of ooga booga

-only living boy left in cave

-stick over water

[kteezy997]

the director’s daughter-part four//t.c.

I’m having a bad day. My depression has been bad the last couple of weeks or so. This chapter is shorter than previous ones, but I wanted to put out something for you all to enjoy💕

Warnings: suspicious friends, slight angst, cursing, kissing, making out, beginnings of smut

The next day, y/n sat next to Timothée at breakfast. Florence had lovingly served up the hot morning meal with coffee and assorted juices. Of course, it smelled divine and everyone started to eat immediately.

Colleen announced that she thought it might be fun to have a BBQ at her home with all of the cast members and her daughter, obviously, and invite some other crew members. A little party to celebrate the kick off of the movie production.

Everybody agreed in a near unison, nodding their heads as they sipped their drinks and munched on their breakfast.

Y/n finished her plate, and sat silently as she glanced at Timmy periodically while pretending to listen to the table conversation. She thought he looked so cute, his bed head still evident, the heavy bags under his eyes from tiredness. It was such an innocent contrast to the events of the night before.

“So where were you two last night? We didn’t see either of you at all.” Zendaya asked eyeing up both y/n and Timothée.

Y/n looked at Z and Timothée swallowed hard.

He quickly cleared his throat, “Oh, I had a bad headache so I didn’t really feel like going out to see the fireworks.”

“Hmm.” Zendaya nodded, then looked at y/n, “And I suppose you went out with your friends as you had planned?”

She nodded, “Yes, I did.”

“Babe,” chuckled Tom as he touched his girlfriend’s hand, “are you their mother or something? Let them live.”

“No, I’m not mothering, I just thought it was a little funny because I’m pretty sure her car was here all night.” Z shrugged.

“Well, my friends actually picked me up.” y/n chimed, “And dropped me off early this morning.”

“Okay. That makes sense.” Zendaya seemed satisfied with the answer, but y/n couldn’t help but wonder why she was acting so suspicious.

“Wow, Zendaya’s a better mother than I am these days.” Colleen joked to lighten up the mood.

……

It was a good day, but it ran into evening and y/n was ready for everyone to leave so it would just be the housemates. She was mostly missing Timmy. With the filming schedule and having so many others in the house, they hadn’t been alone in a week. And this morning he didn’t even look at her at breakfast. She hoped he wasn’t losing interest in her.

Florence had suggested going for a dip in the hot tub to end the evening. She had brought a date that she met at the farmers market earlier that day, Shane, or Shawn, no one could remember which his name was.

Y/n went inside and up to her room to change into her bathing suit. Timmy followed her upstairs, not saying a word. She felt discouraged when he remained quiet and went to his own room. Maybe he was forgetting about her. She wanted the fling to continue, and maybe eventually turn into something more. Perhaps it was silly of her to think that could happen. She was still in college and he was a mainstream movie star pushing thirty.

She opted for a black one piece swimsuit that cut high up on her thighs. The square neckline also held her boobs up nicely. Maybe Timmy would notice.

She hurried along in an attempt to catch Timmy before he walked back downstairs to the jacuzzi. She opened the door and he was walking down the hallway, “Timmy, wait!” she called out to him.

He stopped and turned, raising a brow at her, “What do you mean? We’re getting in the hot tub.”

“I know.” she said, hustling over to him. She stopped, smiling softly as she put her hands in his hair and pulled him into a kiss.

He was surprised at first, but then kissed her back, holding her close by pressing his hand to her lower back. “Mm.” he hummed against her lips blissfully. “What was that for?” he asked with a tiny grin when she pulled away.

“Just checking.” she said, smirking back at him.

“What, just checking to see if I’m still into you? Because I am, Bunny.”

“Well, it hasn’t seemed like it this past week.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been busy, and I wasn’t sure if you were still in to me. I thought maybe you’d think I’m too old for you-"

“I thought that you’d think I’m too young for you. Like you could find someone your age who’s prettier and more experienced, maybe.”

“No, I’m sorry if I’ve been misleading. I definitely want you, y/n.” he smiled, then bit his lip.

She grinned like a schoolgirl, saying, “Fuck, I’m so lucky.” She pulled him into another kiss, a harder one, putting a firm hold onto the back of his head. She wove her fingers into the soft curls just for a moment. Pulling away, she quipped, “We should get out there before Flo comes to find us.”

Timothée chuckled, “Oh you know she will.”

They took each other’s hand, him leading the way downstairs, “Let’s keep it between us, just for a little while longer, yeah?” he asked, looking at her. “I mean, I’m sure everyone in the house might have their suspicions, but let’s not give in to them until we have to.”

“Sure. Let’s keep it close as long as we can.” she smiled, giving his hand a squeeze before they parted on the back patio.

“Fucking finally!” Florence exclaimed, seeing them both come down. She was in the hot tub with her date. “It’s about time you two showed up.” She gave the pair each a cheeky grin.

Some time went by, the four adults enjoyed the jacuzzi and the calm summer night, sipping their drinks and making light conversation about the film.

Things shifted, however, and Florence started kissing Shawn.

Y/n and Timothée kept to themselves, trying not to stare. But the other couple started making out more heavily and touching each other. The mood was entirely different from how it started out.

@gatoenlaciudad @thebetawolfgirl @musicandbooksaremyhappyplace @softhecreator @tchalamss @lixzey @bitchyunknownuser @ducktapebar @aoi-targaryen @yukideadinside @elloise0 @thatoneweirdgirl17 @mel-vaz @sammy-halpert @iwishchalamet @that-one-fangirl69 @jindongdongie @briefkittenearthquake @imnotoverlyobsessive

[picklebunbun]

HIII HOW U DOING I would like to make a request (if ur not busy!!) 

About flippy/fliqpy (htf) and reader with anger issues!

Like they just randomly go mad crazy but they calm down easily, but it’s kinda freaky how fast they go form psycho crazy to a lil silly person

Oh could you also make reader’s gender neutral? 

Thank you so much for ur hard work!!

‧₊˚♪𝄞࿐₊˚⊹ Flippy/Fliqpy x gn! reader

৻ꪆ..

savior

novulent ♥︎

⇄ ◁◁ 𝚰𝚰 ▷▷ ↻

⁰⁰'²⁵ ━━●━━───── ⁰²'⁰⁸

৻ꪆ..

❦. gender neutral! reader, no agab, kind of masculine pronouns but not really at tge same time

❦. genre: more crack than fluff and maybe a hint of angst but you have to squint to ses it

❦. cw: violence, talks about violence, violent tendencies, kind of gorish,, reader seems very bi polar, just reader getting vilely angry, and death

❦. fandom: HTF

❦. can be read as rom or plat

summary: headcanons of reader switching from wild anger to their normal happy go-lucky self in front of Flippy/Flipqy [reader is so kenji from the hit series bungou grey dawgs]

{angel's/pickle's notes 🪽🥒: sorry I've been gone so long, finally school ended and I can focus on writing requests ! Anyways I have to catch up, thank you for requesting !}

˚˖𓍢ִ໋🦢˚

"*_- hcs !

when Flippy first met you, he saw how bubbly you were, kind of air-headed, always hapoy about something. It was nice to see someone like that since most of the people he met hid behind a façade, they were either deeply terrified or would wrap around your throat like a snake, but it turns out, you were actually pleasent to be around.

first of all, you decided to hide this problem away from him, keeping it in a locked caged, making sure it didn't escape, but, just like how you bottle up everything, it all starts to bubble up and explode.

the first time Flippy saw you like that, it was Flippy at all. It was Flipqy.

needless to say, it was very surprising to see you so violently angry, it was like a different person was controling you.

you acted almost exactly like how Flipqy does, although, his was a trauma response and yours was probably for a different reason. You did just as much damage as him when you switch.

when he saw you act this way, it just encouraged him to be even more violent. In no time, blood and guts were flying everywhere, blood-curdling screams from your friens and crying could be heard from miles away.

everything kind of blanked after that.

keep in mind, Flippy doesn't know, only his alter-ego does. So when you tried to apologize from how you acted that day, he was confused, horrified, a little appalled, but he was just a whirlwind of emotions.

you guys had a huge talk that day.

it was kind of funny how you turn back to a silly goober and waddle away from the corpse you just killed.

you were so adorable too, anyone could've had their guard down around you. It's like you were constantly stuck on ':3' you're whole life,,,

one time, when you were basically destroying everything in your path, the minute you saw Flippy, you stopped what you were doing and hopped your way to him. Very weird,,, but he loves you so it's okay, in his words,, "who am I to judge anyways ?"

but yeah, he makes sure he's around you in public so no more people have to be tortured endlessly by you,, and so you can calm him down when he has another PTSD episode! So it's basically a win-win.

most of your time is spent with Flippy cause of how paranoid he can get from you being out in public alone.

Flipqy is still kind of wary around you, but since you treat Flippy right and he trusts you with all his life, he eventually learns to trust you.

you'd probably almost go to jail or a psychiatric hospital multiple times.

your [best friend or lover] will always bail you out, dw my man. 🙏

a whole protest to bail you out too,, "FREE MY HOMIE, [NAME] ‼️"

you come home in the middle of the night standing in the doorway.

"DARLING, GUESS WHO'S BACK FROM JAIL" "WHAT?!"

they can't keep ya boy locked up, YOU STAY WINNING 😼

but long story short, you and Flippy are awesome and everyone should treat you guys like royalty.

[jyushimatsurepliez]

HIII

ive known and followed ur blog for awhile, always coming bac to this blog when i get back into hyperfixating over osomatsu san

ur a great artist and super funny, ur a big inspo for me and im just super super happy u exsist

ive finally had the confidence to submit a ask after years and im glad im able to

hope u have a good day/afternoon/night and yea much love from a avid jyshimatsu+karamatsu enjoyer

{Heyyyy!! I'm so sorry I've left this unanswered for so long TwT Even though this ask is so lovely honestly!! Thank you so much for all the kind words!

It's really been forever since I posted anything here, I guess when 2020 hit it really got to me more than I thought... And admittedly before that it'd already become a little bit of a grind I suppose. So I've been giving myself a mental break since then, and focusing on more original stuff, and that's been cool as well but... God this blog has been so much fun too and remains dear to me even if I'm hardly around these days TwT

I hope there's been enough content on it to go around and go back to and enjoy, but yeah, sorry I'm not as active as I used to be TwT But either way it truly means a lot that I was able to be an inspiration, and I really wish you all the best!! Also thank you for finding me funny! TwT I struggle with that part of my self-image even though I love drawing humour, so it's a real confidence boost.

Lots of love and muscle muscle to you, sorry I'm so late and I really hope you've been OK and will keep being OK, either way! 💛}

[demonsfate]

shipping questions // accepting // @juanalmada1234 asked . . . shipping questions: 1, 18, 20, 22 and 28

1. what’s the best thing about shipping for you?

It's hard to say! There are so many great things about shipping! But I think it may just be delving deep into the characters' feelings. Often, people may behave differently toward those they are in love with. I feel that in ships, you can view a side of a character that isn't often seen. Like Jin may be more affectionate and more willing to make physical contact with a lover than he will with a friend. They may know stuff about each other than nobody else does. And we get to see just how far the characters will go for their lovers. I just think it's a great opportunity to flesh out two characters.

It's also interesting for Devil, because he used to be somebody who couldn't really love anyone. So, it's a new experience for him!

18. is there a ship you used to like, but not anymore?

I'm trying to think but... I don't think there really is? Usually it's rare for me to start disliking a ship I've enjoyed. I guess the closest thing to this would be that I used to consider the idea of Jin & Julia (they have stuff in common!) But I pushed that aside in favor for Jun & Michelle. Dunno why! But I just prefer the moms together lol

20. is there a ship you wanted to play, but couldn’t yet?

EEEEEYAHHHH!! As I said, I do have a soft spot for the Jin & Alisa ship, so I would not mind trying that one out!!! I also have a super secret soft spot for the Jin & Miguel ship! Y'know, it's not as toxic in MY portrayal 'cos Jin isn't actually responsible for the sister's death. But y'know, the guy who did get her killed still exists within him... so that would make things AWKWARD. Anyway, I like the Jin & Miguel ship just because it seems Jin has a thing for the hot-headed aggressive guys. And well... also just look at how TALL and HANDSOME he is! I thiiiiink those are the only ships I haven't really gotten to play yet? I'll probs get to play 'em eventually, tho! Frick, it took over a year for me to get a Xiao & Hwoarang to ship with!

22. is there any ship you will likely never play? (apart from the obvious in/cest, pe/dophilia etc, i want to believe you guys are Good)

Hmm. I think I'm pretty lenient on who I ship Jin with - like I'm VERY easygoing when it comes to writing ships! Hell, somebody could be like "do you wanna ship?" and I'll be like "SURE!" But I do have some dealbreakers, or more so, Jin has some dealbreakers. Like for example, I don't mind the Nina & Jin ship (I don't ship it but it's not something I dislike) but... I just don't see Jin dating an assassin. I see him dating a former assassin who now wants to make amends. But he's not going to date somebody who's still actively hurting or killing people. So like, that means Anna is also off the plate! I also don't see Jin with Marduk or Ganryu either luls. And obviously, Jin would never date Ogre for obvious reasons lol. He wouldn't date Azazel either. But honestly, I don't think those two are capable of romance.

Devil, on the other hand - I feel like there would be a lot more ships I'd be willing to do with him, but it also depends on the timeline. I'd joke that pre-purified Devil would go after Ogre, and he may! But Jin's hatred for Ogre is too strong, and thus, it influences Devil to be furious with Ogre. Devil, would however, go after Marduk - purified and not purified unfortunately. Like Jin though, he wouldn't be interested in Ganryu.

28. would you play a “bitter exes” relationship?

The funny thing is that out of all the years I've been RPing (11 years now...) I have never written a breakup with mine & my partner's muses, I've never written exes before. Isn't that weird? I always thought I'd get breakup threads 'cos I happen to frequently write problematic muses. (Like Devil - villains. Or if not villains, then morally gray / anti-heroes) Yet... nothing ever happens! The only time I wrote a breakup was in private discord RPs (back when I used to do those) and they got back together anyway lol.

But I wouldn't mind doing a bitter exes relationship! Though... I'm not sure how bitter Jin would be. I think Jin would only be very bitter if the relationship ended due to betrayal. But I'm not so sure 'cos I never had the opportunity!

Devil, on the other hand, would be a very bitter ex no matter how the relationship ended. Just because Devil, even after purification, is a jealous and possessive man. He may not be as aggressive about it as he once was, but he still feels those two emotions, and he still has to cope with them.

[miseria-fortes-viros]

right 😭 i read a fic where the guy drank a full bottle of vodka on his own, still was able to pack his suitcase completely and coherently, buy a plane ticket, and remember everything in the morning with a mild headache. its so fun to read

ok ok ok some more things i find funny about alcohol in fanfic:

• when a character drinks straight vodka (excluding shots). people don’t really do that. but pretty much any other liquor can and will sometimes be consumed on its own

• i don’t care how much they drink. ur 110-pound ballet dancer character will not be able to drink more than ur 250-pound professional football player. it does not matter what the stakes are. if they are doing a drinking competition the football player will win. high tolerance will not save ur ballerina. my dad is a regular drinker and i can keep up with him ONLY because 1) we weigh about the same and 2) we are dutch

• if a character passes out from drinking their friends should be worried. alcohol poisoning is a silent killer! don’t dump them somewhere to sleep it off. someone should be checking their breathing every few minutes and if they start to look sick, to the hospital they go. yes, even if everyone is underage. laws in the us will absolve u from those consequences if u are trying to help someone

• hangovers. they do not work like that. u will not get a hangover from 3 beers. u will get a hangover after 3 beers & 4 shots IF ur tolerance is low and/or you’re older than 30. it takes more than u think. u do not have to black out to have a hangover in the morning

• speaking of blackouts. u need to drink a fuck ton to get there. a 6 pack of beer will not do it. for fucks sake 8 shots will not do it. u don’t black out unless u completely lose track of how much u had. u don’t completely lose ur memory either, u just end up with bits and pieces and ur not sure which order they go in

• if ur partying hard. and i mean HARD. u can finish a handle of liquor between ~4 people. that’s 10 shots per person and approximately double the legal limit of 0.08% BAC. it only takes 2 shots to get the average person decently buzzed. one character cannot drink a whole handle in one sitting or they will die. in my original post that anon is referencing here i was talking about how a group of ~10 people in a fic drank 50 bottles of hennessy and were only decently drunk. except hennessy is 80 proof (40% alcohol) and if they tried that irl they would be very very dead

idk what else to put here lmfao this is not what i initially intended to do with this ask but. anyway. i know quite a bit about alcohol (i am not an alcoholic i am just dutch and in college) so feel free to ask me questions if ur trying to write about these things and need some assistance :)

[nightlychaos19]

Here we go again...

Yandere Ran Haitani x Reader OC x Reader (a hint)

Three months after the break up

You twirled around in your outfit, deeming it to be perfect for your date night. God, you loved this look! All heads would turn and stare when you entered a room with this outfit.

Even he couldn't keep his eyes or hands off of you when you wore this outfit– you smacked your cheeks and shook your head. Why in the world were you thinking about him of all people?

He should've been the last person on your mind. In fact, he didn't even deserved a spot in your mind anymore! The two of you had finally parted ways after two long years!

This was the dream you had been waiting for, to be far, far, far away from him!

...Yet why couldn't you let go?

With a huff, you sat yourself down on your bed, wondering what in world was wrong with you. Everything and anything somehow always reminded you of the bastard. It was as if he had pissed on everything you loved, leaving his mark for you to remember by.

You inwardly screamed into your hands, contemplating whether smashing your head against the wall would help you forget that bastard or just land you in the hospital for nothing.

Ding!

The sound of your text tone rapidly brought out a smile as you leaped up from the bed to grab your phone, remembering what you had been originally up to. Date night!

You had been seeing a really sweet guy for the past two months. He was everything Ran Haitani was not.

One of your favorite things about him was that he actually listened you when you said no, whereas Ran Haitani just couldn't understand the concept of it.

Jay💕

Hey [Y/n]..

[Y/N]

Hey Jay, what's up?

Jay💕

I have to cancel for tonight.. Something important came up.

[Y/N]

Wait, for real?? I thought you had the weekend off!

Jay💕

I know, it's just that the boss needs help with the new hires.

You couldn't help but roll your eyes, his boss needed ''help''. You had met his boss before, and she was not a very friendly lady whatsoever. In fact, you had met her and Jay through your friend.

Your friend, [F/N], had forgotten some important documents and you being the gracious friend you were, first teased her by saying she'd forget her own head if wasn't attached to her body and then brought the documents down to her office.

[F/N] had nearly pounced on you in joy when you arrived with the documents, and immediately introduced you to her coworkers. That was when Jay had caught your eye and the same day where her boss was in her pissy moods.

Jay💕

I promise we'll go out next weekend! Pinky swear!

A frown etched itself across your features. Typically he was good at keeping promises, but his boss definitely had a thing for him. [F/N] had briefly mentioned how their boss would quickly flip flop whenever Jay said anything and often had him stay late. It had only worsened when the two of you had started seeing each other.

It was as if the woman was a psychic! She always made him stay longer on the days where you two had something planned. Sometimes you suspected she had either hacked his phone or was reading his texts.

Jay💕

[Y/n]?

Letting out a huff of breath, you texted back a fine and told him not to worry, happy mood completely obliterated.

What an utter waste of time.

༺σηє ωєєк ℓαтєя༻

With one last twirl, you smiled, feeling all so pretty. Having donned your favorite outift, you deemed yourself to be irresistable and was sure Jay wouldn't be able to keep his eyes off of you.

Make up? On point.

Outfit? Flawless

Hair? Not a stray strand in sight.

Lips? Oh so kissable.

Nothing could ruin—

Ding!

Jay💕

I have some bad news...

Oh for— you just had to jinx yourself, didn't you?

Jay💕

I'm gonna be late for our date, my car is acting a lil funny. Don't be mad love! 🙏

Your eye twitched, smile vanished and replaced with a frown. Wondering why you a sinking feeling it lead back to his boss. Surely they couldn't...right? He wouldn't do that, he was far too sweet for his own good sometimes!

With a small huff, you texted back an ok and to be safe, but couldn't shake off your irritation. Something just wasn't right and you couldn't place your finger on it.

Jay💕

I'll be fine!! I think I'll be at least 10 to 15 mins late! I'm leaving the office rn! Can't wait to see you, love!🧡🧡

To say you were surprised, would be oh so wrong. A lot of your dates seemed to end up a lot like this and he had always chalked it up to him being bad with managing his schedule. You had always let it go, but now it was becoming too redundant.

If there was anything you had truly liked about Ran Haitani, he at least didn't make you wait around to see him. Well then again, he always made sure to be glued by your side.

"You better be there in soon.." You grumbled, grabbing your keys.

Even with your irritated mood, you enjoyed the cool breeze; letting it flow through your locks. With a deep breathe, you tried to smile and pump yourself up. Tonight was important.

Tonight was the night you'd ask Jay to officially become your boyfriend.

Tonight would be a new start.

A new start without him.

'Ran..' You thought with a soft expression as you gazed up at the moon. He had always loved the moon, saying it held some importance for lifelong lovers. "Lovers, huh?" You couldn't help but sneer, he had dumped you when he found a new pretty doll.

You smacked your face gently, grossed out by your very thoughts. Since when did you even care he had dumped you? You were glad he done so. You could finally live without him breathing down your neck.

Did you...miss him?

You shook your head vehemently, scolding yourself for such a thought. Absolutely revolted by it. Why in the world would you miss the man that had suffocated your life?

Ran probably (and hopefully) had forgotten all about you and was most likely with her. With his pretty new doll.

Shaking your head once more, you entered the restaurant and noticed how full it was. Thankfully you had made a reservation. One could usually get a table without a reservation, but again, this was a very important night and you did not want to take any chances.

"Right this way ma'am." The hostess smiled, and led you to your table. Along the way, you felt your pride and confidence rise as you could feel the stares on you, your outfit and look were serving.

"Here's the menu ma'am," The hostess handed. "If this isn't too awkward to say, but you look very beautiful tonight. Something special happening?"

Your cheeks reddened lightly and a smile spread across your features as you softly nodded.

The hostess wished you luck and winked at you, saying that your partner was one lucky person and you nodded bashfully. It had been awhile since you had heard such nice compliments that weren't from Ran.

༺ 𝒯𝓌𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓎 𝓜𝒾𝓃𝓊𝓉𝑒𝓈 𝓛𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓇 ༻

Your cheeks burned in embarrassment as Jay still hadn't arrived. The restaurant was only five minutes away from your place, and about fifteen-ish minutes or less away from his job.

So where in the world was he?? He didn't even bother to answer of your texts either.

The stares that once swelled up your pride, were now crushing it. You could just hear their thoughts and theories.

'Was she stood up?'

'Doesn't have a date, so she pretended she did?'

'Catfished I bet.'

'Maybe she gave 'em cold feet.'

'What a shame.'

'Maybe she was dumped.'

You just wanted to shrink away from their stares, and quietly disappear. You just had to jinx yourself earlier, didn't you?

"[Y/N]!" An out of breath voice called out, causing you to peek up from the menu you were hiding behind and saw Jay. He had looked like he had just ran a marathon, all hot and sweaty.

He came rushing and sat down in front of you, looking all disheveled and shit. You sighed inwardly as you gave him a once over, he was dressed in a shirt and sweats while you were extremely dolled up.

Did he forget tonight was date night?

"Jay," You forced a sweet smile, trying to stay calm and scold him. "You're here.."

He gave you a sweet smile...but it didn't melt your heart like it usually would have. Maybe you had finally hit close to your limit. "Sorry! You just won't believe what happened!"

Your forced smile didn't waver, and encouraged him to share his little tale as you were all too curious to know why he was so late.

The second his eyes widened for a split second, you knew something was off. He was lying and hiding something.

You were awfully observant, and you liked to think of it as a super power. You had picked it up during your time with Ran and it was a god send. It made it easier to deal with the man.

Well, Jay started telling his story as he looked through the menu, but you didn't hear one word. Your focus was on his face, as you noticed something amiss.

It just seemed pinker than usual.

His cheeks also looked...sparkly?

Leaning over, your fingers grazed his cheek to wipe at the sparkly thing. His eyes widened and immediately backed away from your taste, leaving you stunned.

"[Y-Y/N]...Y-you...to-touched!" You quietly giggled as he stuttered, cheeks reddening. You had misunderstood him, he was just flustered by your touch.

How cute.

"Aren't you so adorable?" You cooed, making him blush harder and stutter over his word even more. He gave you a short a glare, which made you giggle and tease him some more.

"S-stop it." He pouted cutely, and pulled on his shirt collar to help cool himself.

Your lips parted to say something until you saw something with a darkish pink hue when he had pulled his collar down further. Your eyes widened when you recognized the shape.

A lipstick stain, your mind registered as you sat there frozen.

He had a lipstick stain on him.

A darkish pink lipstick stain trailing near his chest.

Why in the fuck hadn't you picked up on this earlier? Why in the world were you trapped in lala land, because look where it had landed you.

Cheated on by a guy that wasn't even official with you.

Was there something wrong with you? Damn, cheated on yet again and it hadn't even hit the five month anniversary of the first time.

Abruptly standing up, you glared down at Jay. "I guess you were late because you were probably balls deep in another woman, right?"

The way his face paled, told you everything.

You shook your head at him as a laugh of disbelief escaped your lips. "You can't even deny it, can you? It's that boss of your's, isn't it?"

Jay leapt to his feet, fumbling over his words but you just got up from your seat and proceeded to leave. You didn't want to hear the excuses nor did you have the patience for them.

Funny how you had thought he was better than Ran Haitani. Both were pieces of shit that had been hurled your way by fate and both had the audacity to cheat on you.

As you left the restaurant, Jay chased after you, pleading you to hear him out, but you did not give him a single flipping fuck what he wanted. He had ruined his chances with you.

Was it too much to ask for a man to stay faithful or least him tell you he was seeing other people?

"[Y/N], w-wait!" Jay attempted to grab you by the arm, further igniting your fury.

In a flash, you smacked him with your purse, not once but twice. He stumbled over his feet and fell right on his ass.

"We're over!" You hissed, before laughing mockingly. "HA! Actually, we weren't even official, so whatever people do before being anything, goodbye! Thank god we weren't too down deep in this." You gave him the middle finger and gave him one last warning - to lose your number as his was long gone and to leave you alone.

With a huff, you marched down the street, going anywhere but home. You were sure he'd try to go there first, as you were sure he'd try to plead his case again and you were having none of it.

Oh you were so done with men.

Tokyo Revengers

Part 1 - Down in the dumps? Nah!

Part 2 - Living rent free in her head Part 4 - Manipulative

Part 5 - Manipulative Part 2

[regenderate-fic]

When I Run Away (You're Who I Run To): Epilogue

main post read on ao3

Word Count (Chapter): 1,190

NOTES: sorry to make you all wait so long for this… but behold! epilogue!

this is by far the longest fic i've ever finished, so thank you to everyone who's read this far <3 it's been really fun to see people's responses every week, and i hope you like this as an attempt to tie it all up.

i have a bunch of other ideas in the works, too, although some of them are pretty far off from this! but keep an eye out if you want to see the roseyazclara disaster throuple fic OR the tenrose figure skating au <3

UPDATE: I (30F) might be in love with my roommate (29F). What am I supposed to do? - u/throwRAjustgoodfriends

Okay, I’m mostly here because everyone else involved thought it would be funny to see the responses. If you don’t remember my last post, basically I thought I was straight but had just realized I had a thing for my best friend (“Lily”).

First of all, there’s not much point in the pseudonym, considering the “friend” whose place we were staying at (hi, Penny) found the post and figured out who I was talking about right away. So I’ll just call her Rose, considering that’s her name.

Second of all, thanks to whoever crossposted to Instagram, because Rose doesn’t use Reddit. But she saw it on Instagram, and long story short, everyone was right. She was totally into me, had been for years, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. (Rose and Penny both want to “enter into the record” that *they* can believe it.) Not much about our relationship has changed, to be honest, but it feels really great to finally understand how I feel. And the extra cuddling isn’t half bad, either.

That’s not where it ends, either. Somehow I’ve gone from someone who couldn’t admit I was into women to someone who has two girlfriends? We’d been spending a lot of time with Penny (she owns the shop across the street, and she was going through a rough time), and I suppose you might say one thing led to another.

All of this is to say that everything in my life has gotten much better in the last six months. I didn’t really realize this was possible when I posted. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first post, but especially Penny, of course. And if you’re ever in London, check out Bad Wolf Body Shop (and TARDIS Bakery)! 

Yaz leaned back, lifting her hands from the keyboard. “Good?” she asked.

Rose and Penny leaned in on either side of her, scanning the words on the screen. Rose nodded, but Penny gave her a sidelong look. “Where’s the bit about how incredibly sexy your newest girlfriend is?”

Yaz rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m posting.” 

“No, wait!” 

But it was too late: Yaz had hit the post button. She wrapped an arm around Penny’s shoulders until Penny fell across her lap, displacing the laptop—fortunately, Rose had the presence of mind to move it to the coffee table before leaning her head on Yaz’s shoulder with a contented sigh. Yaz smiled. 

“Time for bed?” she asked. 

They were still all piling into Rose’s bed most nights, even though the necessity was no longer there—Ace had gone and filled one of the rooms in Bill’s flat after one of Bill’s roommates broke their lease. She still came over most afternoons, of course, but she slept somewhere else, and theoretically Yaz could’ve slept in her bed again. In practice, though, she’d gotten used to sharing a too-small bed with Rose and Penny, and then Rose had caved and found them a bigger bed. So tonight, they sprawled out, one of Yaz’s arms flung across Penny, brushing against Rose’s side, and one of Penny’s legs slung over Yaz’s hip. Yaz pulled the blanket up to her chin, reveling in the knowledge that not only was she sitting in such coziness, but she was used to it. She borderline took it for granted. 

She fell asleep quickly, and woke up slowly. She blinked open her eyes and turned her head to see the summer sun, shining through the curtains, turning Rose’s hair gold. Penny was gone already: she’d gone back to her full time hours a couple months ago, and on days she worked she was out of bed first. Sometimes Yaz would wake up to her alarm, and she’d give Penny a bleary kiss before rolling over and falling back asleep; today, though, she’d missed it. 

She checked the time on her phone. There were five minutes before her own alarm went off. That was the best sort of morning. It meant Yaz could roll over, cuddle up next to Rose, and shut her eyes again for just a little longer. 

Her alarm went off, and Yaz sat up. She poked at Rose and laughed when Rose batted her away.

“Get up so we can get coffee,” she said. 

Rose groaned, but she pushed herself up on her elbows. “Fine.”

Ace was behind the counter when they came in. Her jacket had a new patch, Yaz noticed, a cartoonish “BOOM!” design. 

“D’you like it?” Ace asked, looking down at the patch. “Bill gave it to me. Said she had an extra.” She turned her grin on Yaz and Rose. “Penny’s in the back.”

“I’m where?” Penny had appeared in the doorway, balancing a tray of muffins on the hand not holding her cane. When she saw Yaz and Rose, her confused expression turned to a wild grin. “Oh! You’re here! D’you want a muffin?”

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to sell those,” Yaz pointed out.

Penny rolled her eyes. “Fine. D’you want to buy a muffin?”

“Dunno,” Rose said. “What’s in ‘em?” 

“Chocolate, mostly,” Penny said. “Bit of cinnamon, for the kick. Ace mixed the batter.”

“Yeah, all right,” Rose decided. 

Penny grinned. She slid the tray into the display case before using tongs to pluck a muffin off it. Before she could drop it into a bag, she looked up at Yaz. “Yaz? One for you?”

“Okay.” 

Penny put two muffins into the bag and slid it across the counter, and then she came around the counter herself to plant a kiss on each of their cheeks. 

“Good service around here,” Yaz noted, barely suppressing her grin.

“Only the best,” Penny promised. “See you later?”

Yaz and Rose both nodded. And Penny made good on the promise: that afternoon, Yaz finished a tattoo and walked out into the waiting room with her client to see Penny sprawled across three seats, trying to convince Amy that brightly colored feathers were going to be the new fashion trend. 

“Maybe for you,” Yaz said, tapping at Penny’s legs until she swung them to the floor, leaving room for Yaz to sit down. “I think I’ll be keeping my wardrobe feather-free.”

Rose’s head popped into the room. “Oh, are we having a party?”

“You’ve got a client in fifteen minutes,” Amy told her.

“That’s loads of time,” Rose replied. She sat herself down on Yaz’s lap, just like she always had—only now she was in the habit of slinging her arm around Penny’s shoulders, too, which always made Yaz feel like she had fit herself snugly into a three-person puzzle. It was strange: Yaz’s life had only been like this for six months, but somehow it felt like the only way it had ever been, the only way it could be. Here, in her shop, with the people she loved. 

She let her head rest on Penny’s shoulder, let her arm tighten around Rose’s waist, and felt a smile sneak onto her face. If she was lucky, she thought, she would have this forever.

[faeryarchives]

just shut up and stay here

what if (name) and ace are together before the third overblot incident and to free the stupid unfortunate souls, the prefect would need to offer a contract with azul but her boyfriend tries to stop her?

"you are welcome to visit the lounge as guests next time. i will graciously welcome you." the octavinelle dorm leader smiled at (name) and jack who gave him a glare as he walked away.

feeling the upcoming headache, the prefect let out a sigh, crossing her arms as her eyes landed on a certain red hair who meet her disappointed gaze.

"this is such a disaster, not only one but three of my friends got involved in this. "

"(name), let's leave and regroup for now." the wolf tugged on her sleeves towards the door. she let out another sigh of defeat and nodded. "yeah, i think that would be the best."

"(nickname) wait-" before ace could finish what he was about to say, the said girl just gave him a cold shoulder and left the restaurant. seeing how mad she is, deuce and grim could see the depressed lines around ace and the mushroom on his head making it look funnier than sad.

"i made her mad didn't i?"

"well she did offer to tutor you but in the end you resorted to signing the contract."

"i could smell a breakup somewhere."

"take that back!" while grim and ace wrestle on the ground, deuce crossed his arms and watch as jade gave some instructions to the other students involved with the contract.

"i think you should give her some space for a while and i don't think we will be having any free time soon." with that said, floyd emerged behind them with a smile making the trio let out sighs of defeat.

after learning more details from crowley and creating the perfect plan, (name) and jack decided to share it to the mushroom trio, who look like they were going to fall asleep any moment. but once they heard about the plan - their fatigue disappeared.

"... and that's the plan! since pap- i mean, crowley also asked us to try putting a stop on azul's plan." while she happily clapped her hands, ace didn't share the same reaction as he frown.

"absolutely not!"

"huh? why not?" taking a bite out the (favorite food), still not meeting her boyfriend's worried eyes. "i am going with jack either way, it's not going to be dangerous."

"let's talk over there." not wanting to attract unwanted attention - the male gently grabbed the girl's hand and walk towards the corner of the cafeteria to talk.

"what is the problem ace? i think the plan that we made was really good too!"

"it is dangerous! you see how that leader didn't even have a scratch on him after that many students come after him."

"ok listen to me fi-"

"no, i know you are angry at me because i didn't listen but please." feeling her patience running thin as ace rambles on, (name) clicked her tongue and did something.

yes something.

"love, i am not really angry at you."

"what if i go wit-" ace was cut off in the middle of his talk the prefect tugged his collar, making his face lean closer to her. he could see the clear look of sterness in her (color) eyes.

"just shut up and stay here. if you don't, i will really get mad at you." placing a small peck on his lips, (name) gave him a small smile. "don't worry, i got this. i didn't get to become a prefect for no reason." with that, she walked out of the cafeteria with jack and jade who were watching them all along.

"way to go for my henchman!"

"lmao, i think (name) would never fail to put ace in his place its really funny."

"s-shut up!" the first year couldn't help but sit bac down, hands covering his bright red face from his girlfriend's action.

'oh god, she looks so good when does that.'

[cobwebcorner]

Exeunt, Pursued by Goose

Fandom: Resident Evil

Characters: William Birkin, Albert Wesker, Horrible Goose

Rating: Gen

Summary: It’s a beautiful night in the Arklay Laboratory, and you are a horrible goose.

Except not really because this isn’t in second person. William Birkin gets harassed by a goose at work. That’s it, that’s the fic.

By all rights, William should have gone home to bed hours ago. It was 4 am, labor day weekend, and for once he had the lab all to himself. He could work in peace without fretting about which of his underlings might be a spy, or an Umbrella agent, or plotting to kill him and steal his research for themselves.

Absorbed as he was in his blissful thoughts of science, he failed to notice the soft rattling clank from the far side of the lab. The two mechanical clicks that followed did not grab his attention either. It was the beep, high-pitched and irritating as most beeps were, which pierced the haze of his research-high and made him finally look up and squint uncertainly at the wall.

William slowly looked around himself, double-checking that he was, in fact, alone in the room. No other living soul came to sight. He followed the noise over to the counter where the autoclaves sat, next to the sinks. One of the machines had been activated. He could hear the buzzing hiss of air being pumped out from its chamber as he approached. These machines could not turn themselves on. They were state of the art equipment, maintained with great care. He had never heard of one glitching in such a way. Fully automated though they may be, it still took a human hand to latch the doors closed and press the start button.

He shut the machine off and stepped away as the door popped open. The interior had not yet begun to heat, so it was safe for him to check the chamber. There were no materials inside. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. No one else was in the lab with him, and he hadn’t started sterilizing anything.

Yet the machine had activated. Strange.

Returning to his work station, he banished the odd incident from his mind and went back to his analysis. The lab was quiet. Too quiet. It took him a minute of distracted fussing with his notebook to realize the issue: the centrifuge, which should have been running for another 3 minutes at least, had stopped whirring. He darted over to it. The machine looked in perfect order, except it had become unplugged.

Behind him, a tray of beakers clinked against each other, as if something had knocked into the table. William whirled around. There was no one there either.

He held very still, just breathing, only his eyes shifting as he scanned the lab a third time for some explanation to these disruptions. When no explanation presented itself, he straightened his spine with all the practiced authority of a man who had spent over half a decade bossing around people three to four times his age, and he called out, “Alright. I’m sure you think you’re very funny. We’ll see how funny you think this is after being put on Hunter cleanup duty for a month. Come out here!”

Nothing but the hum of the florescent lights answered his demand. Maybe the lab was just haunted. He had never before now had to examine his own personal beliefs on the existence of ghosts. Right now, at four am when he was alone in a laboratory where a lot of people had died badly in agony, seemed like a bad time to start.

William grit his teeth, plugged the centrifuge back in, reset the timer, and tried to get back to work. It was a fool’s errand. He was too thoroughly distracted now. The momentum of thought that had been powering him through to the small hours of the morning had crashed against a metaphorical wall and slid down into a metaphorical ditch. He threw down his pencil with a growl of frustration and then fisted his hands in his hair. He’d been so close to a breakthrough, he could feel it--

“GRONNK”

The horrible noise shook the ceiling. William backpeddled from his station fast, checking his hip on the table behind him. Every hair on the back of his neck and arms stood at attention. He heard a lot of horrible, bestial noises in his line of work. Usually, he knew what was causing the noise, and had a solid barrier of glass between himself and it. This noise was uniquely terrifying.

A quick succession of thwap sounds, like something was slapping against the inside of a metal vent, scurried across the ceiling. “GRONNK,” the unseen menace bellowed once more.

There was something up there. In the vents. William did the only sensible thing: he grabbed the lab phone, receiver and all, hauled it under a table with him, and dialed Albert’s pager. Several tense minutes passed with him huddled there, flinching at every burst of noise from the ceiling above.

When the lab phone rang, he jammed his knuckles on the receiver in his haste to grab it.

“Do you realize what time it is?”  Albert began, his voice coarse from sleep. It must have been a rare night when Albert was actually getting some rest. If William were a good person, he might feel bad about interrupting that.

William was not a good person. All he felt was panicked irritation that a groggy Albert would take longer to get here.

“Albert there’s something in the vents,” William bit out in a rush. A distant, echoing GRONK of agreement made him flinch. “You have to get down here immediately.”

“It’s 4:30 am. Why are you still at the lab?” Albert retorted.

“What are you talking about? We stay overnight at the lab all the time.”

“You’re not 15 anymore, William, you’re going to destroy your health.”

William bit back a sharp retort about the two facts that Albert was just as bad, and that being barely over 20 gave him no place to start lecturing him like an old mother.

“You know what’s even worse for my health? The thing loose in the vents!”

Wesker grumbled something away from the receiver. William only caught the words “LSD again,” and bristled. He was most certainly not on drugs, nor was he hallucinating. Probably.

“Would you just get down here already?”

“If it’s so pressing, why don’t you call security?”

“I don’t need those buffoons trampling about my laboratory. Just get back to Arklay!”

“That’s what they’re--” Albert bit off a sigh. “Fine. I’ll come and get you.”

“I don’t need you to come get me I need you to--”

The phone clicked and blared a dial tone at him. William scowled at it and slammed it back down on the receiver. He hated it when Albert did that.

Albert had gone into town for the long weekend, William remembered belatedly. Which meant he’d have to either catch the next staff train or find a helicopter to get him here. William drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. He was in for a long wait.

***

An unknown amount of time later, the laboratory door banged open, startling William out of a light doze.

“William?” Albert called.

Will poked his head out, looking to where Albert stood by the door and simmered with barely repressed temper.

“Keep it down!” William hissed.

Albert gave him a singularly unimpressed look. William, immune to all of Albert’s cutting expressions after long years of knowing him, ignored it completely. He was more interested in Albert’s uncharacteristically rumpled appearance. Albert’s hair hung in a messy fall to one side, his shirt was buttoned crooked, and--were those dark splotches lining his neck bite marks?

Ah. Now William understood both why Albert had been in bed, and why he was so irritated to be called away from it. He had a sinking feeling that Albert was going to make him pay for this later.

“Have you been hiding under there this entire time?” Albert asked him. He did not bother to keep his voice down.

“Of course I’ve been hiding, there’s an unknown creature loose in my labs and I--” William broke off. He’d reached down to grab the phone, to bring it with him, when his hands brushed only empty floor tile. He groped around with both hands, hunting for it, finding nothing. Finally he looked down. The phone was gone. “Wh--where did the phone go?”

Albert furrowed his brow at him. He glanced around the lab, still standing in the open completely unconcerned, uncomprehending of their dire predicament.

“You left it in the sink,” Albert observed.

“I did not put it in the sink! I have not left this spot since I used it to call you.”

Albert crossed the room to the lab sink, reached down, and pulled the phone out. He held the phone aloft and looked back at William, tilting his head down so William could see the baleful glare of his pale eyes over his sunglasses.

“I didn’t put it there!” William repeated.

His friend put the phone down with more force than necessary, earning a distressed ‘clink’ from the device. He strode over to William, bent down, and seized William’s chin, pulling his face forward and tilting it back so he could examine William’s eyes.

“What have you taken recently.”

“I’m not on anything, I haven’t--” William began, and stopped himself. Even he knew better than to argue when Albert’s voice took that flat tone. “Amphetamines.”

“And?”

“Nothing else! Maybe some caffeine. A lot of caffeine. I’m not tripping, Al, there’s really something in the--”

“GRONNK.”

The noise was even more horrible than he remembered. William jerked out of Albert’s grip and backed up under the table while Albert slowly raised his head towards the ceiling.

He heard that ‘thwapthwapthwap’ noise, banging around the vent, and shrank in on himself with a shudder. Albert would know what to do. It would all be okay now that Albert was here. If he told himself that enough, maybe it would come true.

“What on Earth...?”

And Albert, brave, handsome, stupid Albert, immediately climbed up on the table. William poked his head out again and watched in horror as his friend reached up for the vent cover.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, reaching up and tugging on Albert’s pant leg. “Get down here!”

“I need to see what we’re dealing with,” Albert said, as if it were the most logical course in the world instead of fucking suicide.

“The second you stick your head in there it’s going to rip your face off!”

Albert only scoffed at him. He produced a flashlight from somewhere and shoved both it and his head in through the opening. William was only slightly resentful that Albert was tall enough to do so.

“GRONK.” Thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap.

“It’s very fast,” Albert observed. “I didn’t get a good look at it.” He reached up and tapped at the underside of the vents, trying to coax his doom back to him with the sound. There was another series of thwap-thwap-thwaps, moving away from them. Albert ducked back down.

“I need to get some bread.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO FEED IT?” William hissed incredulously.

“We need to lure it out of hiding,” Wesker explained patiently, as if to a 5 year old.

“No, we need to kill it and get out of here.”

“I can’t kill it if I can’t see it, William.”

“But...” William trailed off. He could not think of a good counterargument.

“It’s probably just an animal. A B.O.W. wouldn’t be so shy.”

“No normal animal would ever make that demon noise!”

“You’d be surprised.”

His best friend was an idiot, and it was a miracle he’d survived this long in Umbrella labs. William had no choice but to follow as Albert made his way to the break room. Even if he had lost his mind, Albert was still a strong idiot, with quick reflexes and good aim. And hopefully a gun. He better have brought a gun.

William paced in fretful circles around the table while Albert rooted through the break room fridge. Every now and then he paused, flinching, at a distant “Gronnk!”

“Crackhorn’s still got a piece of cake in here,” Albert said.

“We’re not giving that creature cake,” William protested. Mostly because he’d been planning to steal that cake for himself, later. The next time he remembered to eat. When had he eaten last?

“How long has this paper bag been sitting in the back?”

“Mmm...July?”

A crinkle, as Wesker tentatively worked the top open.

“Better not,” Wesker decided. “If it doesn’t already have a mutation, feeding it this may give it one.”

William didn’t answer. He’d been distracted by a soft rustle behind him, and some very soft plip-plops. When he turned, he saw only a stack of innocent boxes and the break room sink. The sink was running.

“Was the sink on when we came in?” William asked, suspicious.

“Possibly. You know the plumbing down here is older than we are.”

It seemed a plausible enough explanation, yet William could not help feeling unnerved. Perhaps he was just on edge. He went over to turn the faucet off. An ominous gurgling from the pipes was his only warning before a spray of water spat out from the nearby valve, showering him in tepid water. William yelped, backpedaling. He blinked stupidly at the water arcing from the pipe.

“As I said,” Albert remarked dryly, “Old plumbing.”

He was laughing at William. He might not be doing it out loud, but William heard it all the same. He leveled a glare at his friend and kept glaring as Albert approached and, gingerly, reached behind the spray of water to turn a valve shut. The deluge slowly petered out.

Albert smirked at him and walked off. Growling and cursing under his breath, William went to go dig some paper towels out of the cabinet. He shrugged his lab coat off and dabbed at the uncovered front of his shirt where the spray had gotten through.

On the other side of the room, Albert’s smirk melted into a frown.

“Where did the cake go?” he asked.

“Well I don’t know, maybe it’s old plumbing,” William replied waspishly. He mopped at his face and tried to wring out his dripping hair.

“It was right here on the bottom shelf.” Albert pointed in the open fridge.

“Maybe you hallucinated the cake.”

“If you don’t have anything useful to say, then be quiet.”

William sniffed disdainfully. He finished drying off the worst of the water in silence while Albert contemplated the open fridge. Finally Albert reached in for something, his head briefly disappearing inside the belly of the machine.

Out in the hall, something far too close for comfort loudly went “HONK.”

Albert and William both jumped, Albert hitting his head on the roof of the fridge. Albert jerked his head out of the fridge, both hands cradling his head and eyes squeezed shut. William immediately climbed up on top of the table.

“It’s outside! The demon is right outside!”

“It’s not a demon, it’s some kind of bird.” Albert kicked the fridge closed. He stalked over to the open door, ignoring William’s yell, and came to a stop just outside the break room. His expression was incredulous as he stared down the hall.

“It’s a goose.”

“A goose?”

“Yes. The horrible monster running around your lab, who you have been hiding from for several hours, is a goose.”

Albert definitely would have been laughing if he weren’t still smarting from hitting his head.

“Geese are horrible monsters,” William defended himself.

“They are just birds.”

“Spoken like a man who was never been chased through a park by a flock of angry geese as a kid.”

Albert did not grace that with a response. In a practiced motion, he drew a handgun from under his coat and sank into a firing stance.

“Wh--don’t shoot it!” William squeaked. He scrambled down from his perch on the table. Albert looked at him.

“Do you want to let a large bird run loose in the labs?” he asked.

“No. I want to catch the little monster and submit it as a test subject.”

“It’s a wild animal,” Albert said. “God knows what parasites or diseases it already has. We can’t get any useful experiment data out of such an unknown quantity.”

“I disagree. It could give us a clearer picture of how the virus will interact with wildlife in a real world situation.”

Albert stared at him for a long moment.

“You just want to take revenge on it because it scared you.”

The accusation was ludicrous, suggesting a ridiculous amount of pettiness from him, a grown man, and--as it happened--he was absolutely correct. William managed not to fidget under the blank stare of Albert’s shades. It was amazing how judgmental Albert managed to look without twitching a muscle.

“I’ve had to deal with the budget long enough to not turn my nose up at a free resource,” William tried.

“You have never thought about our budget for more than three seconds,” Albert retorted. Still, he put away the gun with a put-upon sigh. “Fine. We’ll go catch it.”

***

The two men followed the plip-plaps of little webbed feet down the corridor to the storage room, where they arrived just in time to watch a small white body vanish into a wall vent that was conveniently goose-height. He wondered where the vent cover had gotten to.

“How did a goose get all the way down here?” William asked.

“An excellent question. We may need security to check the facility for holes.”

“I’ll bet it’s corporate sabotage.”

“Sabotage,” Albert repeated, voice desert dry. “By a dastardly enemy agent who is fussing with our plumbing and stealing cake.”

“AND making an attempt on my life.”

“By unleashing...” Albert paused for effect, “a goose.”

“A goose loose in a laboratory. Don’t you realize what pandemonium it could have unleashed?”

Albert hummed in consideration.

They entered the storage room. It was, as usual, cold and foul smelling, a side effect of sharing vents with the morgue. A little white form darted among the shelving units and hid among the boxes. Albert moved towards it while Will hung back, watching.

He didn’t get a clear look at what happened next. Albert approached the pile of boxes where a feathered tail was poking out, then there was a blur of motion, a yell, an angry honk, and the next thing he knew Albert was on his ass with his quarry irritably flapping its wings several feet away.

Albert had lost his sunglasses somehow in the brief scuffle. Groaning, he swiped them up from the floor and put them back on. Except they weren’t the same sunglasses he’d been wearing before. Somehow they’d been swapped with a pair of novelty heart-shaped sunglasses. William bit back his laughter with a truly herculean effort of will. Albert did not appear to have noticed the difference.

“William, stay right where you are and don’t let it escape. I’m going to drive it towards you.”

All mirth left him at this order.

“What? You want me to catch it?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t want me to shoot it. It’s just a bird, William.”

“It is not just a bird, it is a vicious beast with a long, sharp beak.”

But Albert was already shooing the goose in William’s direction. It was a bold beast, only waddling ahead just enough to keep out of Albert’s reach, honking softly as it went.

William steeled himself. He dealt with far more dangerous creatures every day; he should not be so cowed by a common goose! Of course, those dangerous creatures he worked on were always sedated, strapped to a table, or caged.

The bird ran by him. He grabbed it around the middle and hauled it up off the ground. It made a horrific racket about this, honking and kicking and beating its wings in William’s face. He did his best to keep hold of it with his arms straight out, holding it as far away from his face as he could.

The goose’s long neck arched back and the sharp beak opened, revealing the rows of teeth that lined the back of its throat. This was a horror of nature’s own design, one William had found inspiring in the past.

The second tooth-studded maw that came out from that throat and the spindly bat-like claws that emerged from under the wing joints were not natural. The low, hissing GRONNK noise that came out of its mouth didn’t sound normal either.

William shrieked at a pitch that would bother dogs and threw the bird away as hard as he could. It hit a shelf and stuck there, clinging with its claws, hissing.

William bolted.

The honking followed him into the square hallway. In his panic, William had not thought to close the storage room door behind him, and now he was being chased by the mutant goose.

Why did he not have a gun? Why in the name of all seven hells did he not carry a gun? Never again. He’d be armed to the teeth at all times from now on.

Round and round the central complex it chased him, the slapping of its feet gradually gaining on him, the horrible honking echoing wildly off the concrete walls. When he’d made a full circuit and was passing storage once more, he saw Albert standing in the still open door with his arms crossed over his chest. He was leaning casually against the door frame.

“What are you doing? SHOOT IT!” William bellowed as he ran by.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Albert’s drawl followed him down the hall. “We wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good test subject, would we?”

“Albert!”

He made another lap, and Albert was still standing in the same place. He had not moved a muscle.

“Are you going to do anything or are you just going to stand there and laugh at me?”  

“I want to see how long it takes the penny to drop for a genius who got his virology doctorate at 15.”

William had no idea what he was talking about, and no breath left to yell about it.

It took another three laps and one internal vow to spare some time for cardio exercise before William remembered that geese could not open doors. In his defense, he was panicking. He ducked into the next room he saw, which happened to be the dissection room, and slammed the door behind himself. His back collided with the steel, reinforcing the barrier and allowing himself to sag while he struggled to catch his breath. The door rattled against his back with muffled angry honks.

Minutes passed. The rattling stopped, and the honking drew further away. William peered through the door’s dirty window out into the hallway gloom, searching for a white shape. He heard gunshots, a burst of garbled swearing, honking, flapping wings and hissing, followed by two more gunshots, and then it all went quiet. Either Albert had gotten the goose, or the goose had gotten him. William drummed his fingers against the door. When neither Albert nor the goose appeared in his view, he lost patience and decided to go check for himself. If Albert was dead, then...then he’d try to grab his gun and make for the stairs. He should have run for the stairs to begin with, if only he’d been thinking clearly.

He swung the door open slowly, wincing as the hinge creaked. Strain his ears though he might, he could not detect the plapping of goose feet. Instead he caught a strain of low conversation. Instantly he relaxed. Surely the goose must be dead, if Albert were talking.

Following the voices to the base of the stairs, he came across the bizarre tableau of Albert speaking with some random security guard, who was holding the goose under one arm. The goose was not even struggling.

“....grew up on a farm,” the guard was saying, and he looked sheepish at the admission. “Ah, hello Dr. Birkin. You’re here late as always I see.”

William silently stared back at him in horror. This idiot probably didn’t even realize what it was he was holding.

“You did a fine job. Put it in one of the high security specimen cages,” Albert instructed him.

The guard tipped his hat and walked off towards specimen containment.

“He’s going to die,” William said once the door had closed behind the man’s back. “Did you see it, Albert? It’s infected. It’s going to tear open like...like...have you seen that new horror movie, with the researchers in Antarctica?”

“You expect me to believe you’ve gone to see a movie in the past 5 years?” he asked.

“No--I mean, yes, why wouldn’t I see movies? The point is--”

“You never leave the lab unless someone drags you away kicking and screaming.”

“--the point is, it’s going to erupt out of that bird carcass and eat that man’s insides and wear him like a cheap Halloween costume, do you understand? Why are you casually walking in the other direction?”

“Because we are going to the security room, where we can lock rooms down remotely if anything happens.”

“Oh.”

Albert rolled his eyes. William didn’t need to see them to know that eye-rolling had happened, he just knew. He could feel it.

“So who did the dragging?”

“Huh?”

“To get you out of the lab. I refuse to believe you went to a movie alone.”

“That’s none of your business,” William told him firmly. He was not flushing.

“It’s Annette, isn’t it. I knew you were sweet on her.”

“Well.” William glanced to the side. He didn’t know why he was being so cagey about this. It wasn’t against company policy to date coworkers, after all. “Are you going to tell me who left those bites all over your neck?”

Albert slapped a palm to the side of his neck, feeling around the marks, a fierce scowl on his face.

“I told him to stop doing that,” he muttered under his breath before he swept off into the security room.

And that was how William found out Albert Wesker was bi.

***

To Do List:

Unplug centrifuge

Turn on Autoclave

Put phone in sink

Drive Dr. Birkin under the table

Steal cake

Make Wesker wear the wrong sunglasses

Trap a scientist in the dissection room

Kill and devour 3 lab assistants

[dagss]

What did you think of this year's Césars? PS: I've been watching your movie recs andI loved Adieu Les cons, Gazon maudit and Raw. Zone Blanche is also ridiculously great.

u mean the winners or the ceremony itself ahah? (both weren't that great idk, although the ceremony was hosted by antoine de caunes my meowmeow ksjksjksj)

last year i had seen most of the movies and it's so cool to watch award shows when you know about every movie, but this year i missed a lot of them and only watched the women directed ones so i was out of the loop for most wins, mostly for illusions perdues which won a bunch of categories but i still don't feel like watching it idk 😢 i had watched all the shorts but my favorite ones (des gens biens & le départ) didn't win, sobz. my fav animated short (le monde en soi) didn't win either but the actual winner (folie douce, folie dure) sounds dope, ngl. will watch it.

so happy that valerie lemercier got the best actress one tho, she's so funny she deserves it for her whole career,,, still gotta watch aline tho.

i'm also kind of disappointed la fracture didn't get many noms/wins because it was legit amazing and highlighted a huge systemic problem with french healthcare so idk if you'd relate as a foreigner but it's still a really powerful watch!! lots of anguish and despair, chef's kiss

on another note there's also a small polemic rn on filmtwt about the way the animated movie category got shortened and the winners' speeches were rushed by management, because the program was like 30 mins behind schedule. personally, that felt really wrong to me since animation already lacks room to exist in this ceremony and more generally it lacks recognition in french cinema. i just sat there trying to listen to the super important points the animators were trying to make while the crowd and host were ostentatiously annoyed at the speech being "too long"... it literally wasn't.

also disappointed for adam driver who came all the way here, sat through 3 hours of lame french jokes and didn't win anything 💀

there was a lot of positive things too tho, it was way less boring than other years, the sparks performed so may we start live (i sang my heard out ngl), omar sy was there and made people dance, xavier dolan read a tear-jerking homage letter to gaspard ulliel (dunno if you know who that is but he's an actor who recently died from an accident and it was so sudden and shocking coz he was only 37), cate blanchett's speech was admirable and she spoke french my love!! (even though she told people to shut the fuck up lmao that's going to be a meme on french twitter now)

the extra positive thing is that, despite getting many noms, bac nord didn't win anything, and that's great since neonazi scums reclaimed it almost immediately after it came out & the (white) director didn't want to clarify, nor admit his movie was political, nor acknowledge it had an obvious right-wing vibe about its depiction of poc and Paris' poor districts 🙄 i don't know if i'm gonna watch that one, regardless of the director's initial intentions, his reaction to justified criticism really bothers me, and so i'm glad it didn't win 'cause the nazis were like: >:(

anyway i think i'll add onoda, maalbeek, folie douce, folie dure, aline & le sommet des dieux to my watchlist. from the nominated movies i'd already seen, i'd recommend la fracture, the father (obvi) & annette (i hated most of the songs tho ksjksksksj). oh and also boîte noire was super cool and i love pierre niney!! (i might have said that already i think???)

--

i'm so glad you liked my previous recommendations, ah!!! was gazon maudit funny to you? i'm so scared the humor might get lost and the movie might feel weird to people from other cultures 😭 i'm especially glad you like zone blanche omg, even in francophone countries people don't talk often about it, smh.

[mediocre--writing]

i know we always talk about billy easily submitting to his dad but imagine this:

-

neil is charismatic, that must be where billy gets it, because he has the whole town fooled. nobody sees the demonic beast hiding under human flesh.

neil knows all the neighbors by name. he treats the custodian as he treats his boss. he offers help to old ladies with groceries and helps them cross the street.

people wonder why billy seems to glare at his father and disobey him so often; for how good a man neil is, it’s astonishing how resentful billy is of him.

billy will snark back in public, blatantly roll his eyes, flip him the bird when he’s not looking (and leave it up long enough for him to see when he turns).

the party thinks he’s an asshole who hates everyone. steve can’t believe the amount of disrespect he gives his dad. nancy and jonathan are floored at the vulgar words he speaks about him with, how he talks about him to his face.

max is more sympathetic than ever. how neil is so well known and widely liked by the people of hawkins and how nobody would ever even begin to believe a word of the truth billy could tell.

it’s almost like there’s nothing to be done. because as awful as neil is, there’s some days when billy won’t shut his mouth. and it gets him into trouble.

he’s spiteful and vindictive and vulgar when they shout at each other, but once billy is shoved against the wall, it’s a 50/50 chance he’s gonna fight back.

some days he can’t be bothered. is sick and tired of his own life, he lets the one ‘warning’ hit be enough.

other days he shoves back. he always gets shoved harder after. he’ll rile neil up to the point of maximum damage, but it’s so easy to get him angry it’s almost funny.

billy wishes, every time he gets hit, that some random townsperson would just walk into their living room. or kitchen. or billy’s bedroom. or, on one occasion, their back yard.

nobody sees billy hargrove: victim of abuse. they see billy hargrove: hates the nicest man in town. it’s ridiculous and billy can’t stand it.

he’s almost 18 now. he’s sick of hawkins and ready to leave and go anywhere but where his dad is.

but he wants one last joyride on the anger express. maybe ruin a reputation in the process.

so he acts out one day, while they’re walking down the sidewalk from a store max and susan had wanted to look at before grocery shopping.

billy knows how to get under neil’s skin. it’s one of the things he prides himself in knowing well.

he makes an off handed comment about how shitty it is that he’s being dragged into family outings. “we aren’t even a family,” he’ll say.

neil will give him a look. one that says he’s gonna get it when they’re home. where nobody can see who neil really is.

then billy brings up his mother, how she was so much better than neil could ever be. “she made the right decision to leave you,” he snickers as he watches neil’s fists clench.

a myriad of comments follow. ones about how neil is gonna lose another wife. ones about how he still can’t get billy into place. ones about how awful it must be to enjoy hating children.

there’s one more thing that he’s depending on to be the final fuse to make neil explode, right in broad daylight. bringing in the one thing neil hates most in life: “it’s too bad you’ve got a faggot for a son, huh?” billy says, just loud enough to be almost heard by the old lady walking a few steps in front of them.

when neil’s mustache curls into a pained grimace, billy knows he’s won. knows that he’s got the upper hand of the situation, even if he’s gonna get hit for it.

knows, right when the name “william,” comes out, threatening as ever, that he has won.

so he adds fuel to the fire. “do you think red or pink lipstick would look better with my complexion?” just to see the extra line that forms above neil’s eyebrows.

neil stops walking. turns to look at billy. they’re still in the middle of the sidewalk, max and susan a few feet away, stopped as well. max looks like she wants the floor to swallow her whole.

“well, you know, when i become a drag queen, i’ll have to look good, right?” billy asks his father, and it’s like he’s lost control over his own mouth. “so what’ll it be, dad? pink or red?”

and maybe the alarm bells and flashing red lights in billy’s head should have stopped him from talking. maybe he should have let this grocery trip be about getting weekly groceries.

but something about how he could see his fathers breathing speed up and his face turn so pink it’s almost purple, it’s fun.

with the added addition of seeing some of max’s little friends leaving the theatre at that moment.

right when the boys notice max, neil lunges for billy.

the old lady that had been steps in front of them has turned to see what the thud behind her was, only to see neil holding billy by his collar and his neck, shoved against a brick wall, billy’s toes barely touching the floor.

for being in such a compromising position, billy shouldn’t look as smug as he does when the old lady drops her purse with a gasp or when he sees max’s friends’ faces contort with fear. or when he sees harrington exit the movie theatre as well.

it happens quickly, the fight. billy thinks his brain went black and acted on instinct, he doesn’t remember a thing.

but the bystanders see it all. how close neil leans in to sneer something in billy’s face. how billy laughs, then lifts a knee to hit neil where it hurts.

how he stumbles enough for billy to get on his own two feet.

there’s a quick moment where neither moves, then neil rams into billy, but billy keeps his balance well, planted feet and all, and shoved neil back.

within the next minute, they’re both on the floor and alternating who’s got the upper hand. they’re decently matched as opponents, but neil has the upper hand. he’s taken billy down so many times he knows just how to bring him down physically, like how billy can destroy neil with words.

max and susan are backed up another few yards, susan holding max behind her, but not saying a thing. both are too shocked. this has never happened in public.

the party are watching from across the road, and steve feels like he should do something, because neil just slammed billys head into the cement. and he can’t really tell from how far they are, but billy’s nose is sure to be broken.

“call hopper,” steve instructs the party as he moves to walk across the street.

dustin grabs his arm before he can move far. “billy beat you once before, and now there’s like two of him, steve!”

steve walks over anyway. billy had been straddling neil prior, pushing a finger into his shoulder, before being slammed back to the ground.

there’s many different slurs being spewed from neil’s mouth, many of which change steve’s perception of billy entirely, but that’s not important now.

steve gets to where susan and max are when neil gets a grip on billy’s dangly dagger earring and pulls until it rips out of billy’s ear.

susan is staring, horrified at the scene, and max has shoved her face into the pink cardigan her mother wore, peeking out every moment or so.

when she spots steve, she doesn’t feel relived like she hoped she might, she just feels worse. more people don’t need to be involved.

“max, the party’s over there if you wanna...” steve suggests, motioning over his shoulder where the boys are crowded around a pay phone.

max pulls susan along with her across the road, glancing back at steve, who doesn’t seem to know what to do either.

what is he supposed to do? it’s not like dustin was wrong, steve’s never won a fight on his own.

luckily, right as he sees neil stand up and literally stomp as hard as he could on billy’s elbow, backwards, he hears a siren.

sees hopper’s cruiser pull around the corner and feels like a weight is both equally being lifted off his chest and being pushed down heavier.

neil is standing above billy, a few scrapes and forming bruises, ruffled clothes and a tear in the polo he was wearing, but nothing more damaged than his ego.

billy, on the other hand, is laying face down on the concrete, elbow bending in a way that is not natural and half his face covered in blood from both his nose and his ear.

neil looks only mildly frightened by hoppers appearance, and something about it rests uneasy with steve.

steve feels like he’s having an out of body experience as things happen. like he’s only there to observe, which he kinda is, but it’s hazy.

susan comes back, along with the boys following a shaken up max.

another cop, steve thinks it’s callahan, tries to wake billy up, because at some point neil had rendered him unconscious.

neil looks calm while this happens. he has an almost proud air about him as he watches a man try to wake up his son that he’d beaten so bad, he’d passed out.

it makes steve sick.

it also makes steve wonder if this were a semi common occurrence.

billy is driven to the hospital, mostly because his nose is crooked, his ear is still bleeding, and his elbow is most definitely facing the wrong direction, but they also think he may have cracked a rib or two.

neil is driven off in a cop car, callahan’s, while hopper stays to take stories.

it’s news to steve when susan and max share that this has happened multiple times, just never to such a detrimental state.

max recalls the first time that she’d met billy, he’d been wearing a cast on his arm and refused to tell her how he broke it.

steve sees billy in his head. sees the bruises on billy’s back when they’d play shirts and skins and how he’d chalked it up to a childish fight or a fun night with a girl.

sees how billy would favor his left leg for two weeks during basketball, and only wear sweats, but steve had noticed bruising around his right ankle when he’d change his shoes.

sees how billy seems to have insanely good intuition to when people are behind him or when he’s in a crowded place, always on the lookout.

sees, not justification, but a reason behind the way billy acts.

steve can’t imagine, even if his dad was like neil hargrove, having enough nerve to hit him back. even speak rudely towards him.

he recalls all the times he’d seen billy talk shit about his dad or snark at him in public. now he sees them as acts of bravery and defiance from an abuser rather than impolite and hateful towards a parent.

billy’s been fighting this whole time. and he’s been on the right side of the fight.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “A Mental Thread.”

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a good day. I, as I just learned, got a 5.5 out of 6 on my GRE writing score, which is in like the 98th percentile. You guys may not care, but I had to tell someone! I am so excited.

I guess all this writing paid off. 

Anyway I hope you have a great day!

Conn was afraid.

Fear was not something that the starborn usually experienced on a regular basis, and when he had lived with his own kind emotions had been remote, experienced through the lens of others and the collective consciousness they had shared

But now, alone in his own thoughts and feelings…. He was afraid, an emotion familiar to all species but one that brought itself to a horrible crescendo with his familiarity with humanity, and the way they experienced emotion so poignantly.

He had seen something, he wasn’t sure what.

From the minds of humans, he had come to be familiar with bright flashes of light and loud noises that blind the senses, and he would compare his earlier experience to that, being exposed to such a vast well of….. something , that he was both blinded and deafened to the world around him.

For the second time.

When he awoke he found himself floating in the ship’s infirmary. As a starborn he could not detect the brightness or dimness of light, but only its presence so understanding only the blue of the room around him as he was unable to peer into any thoughts close by. Reaching out with his memory, and trying to latch onto the nearest thing familiar, he finally found his first living being down the hall asleep in their bed. He flicked through their dreams like he was thumbing through a deck of cars.

So colorful, and so confusing, a landscape of single images stitched together into a veneer of reality, though it was simply a scaffold of thought that could be torn down in an instant of the human in question was to simply notice how strange the logic of their dreams were.

But they accepted it and moved forward their minds functioning as if the dream realm was a real place.

He took solace in these strange dreams, not because they were familiar or something he could easily understand, but because they were calming and soft and take, and couldn’t hurt him. Even the humans felt nothing in their own dream despite the frustration of being unable to run without great effort, as if they were moving through water or syrup.

Conn lifted his head and floated gently out into the hallway.

Fear tingled like fire through his limbs, but he was calm, and let the calmness of the sleeping humans seap around and past him. He didn’t really know what he was doing but he followed his fear down a thread and through the ship. No one saw him go, and no one knew that he was awake, most of them still slept and that was alright by him. 

And so he followed a familiar thread to a familiar mind, not sure what he expected to find, but sure that he would find something.

He paused outside the door billowing this way and then that staring inward at the delicate veins of the human brain. He could see it almost as if it were a visual phenomena, the sparking electrical currents of thought that ruptured across the outside of the brain like a net of brightly lit thread.

WIth each spark, he could easily predict the path of the thread and connected it to the wider neural process of thoughts. He couldn’t have pinpointed an exact source or what an exact neuron was doing, there were far too many of them, but he could still sense them there, he could still sense the thoughts and their connection to everything around.

The human brain was a strange and wonderful thing, and for the longest time he had considered it his playground to do with as he would, to dance on those strings of light and pluck at threads of thought like someone plucks at the strong of an instrument.

But now, now he wasn’t so sure.

He really shouldn't have been here, meddling with things that he shouldn’t be meddling with.

But that was hardly his nature, and so he threaded his mind into the shape of a probing needled, and plunged delicately inward.

Funny how the human thought process could be traced to a specific region of the brain.

Images flashed before him melding together with sounds and memories, which rolled over the surface of the brain like great waves on an electrical sea. He watched as decisions were made in the frontal lobe based on those sensations in the occipital lobe and the parietal lobe.

He watched as the movement center of the brain fired despite the paralysis that locked the limbs in place.

He plunged a little bit deeper, felt the veins of emotion, and the welling of fear, he knew that if he stroked long enough at those places, he himself could cause a sense of unease to grow up in the mind of the human, perhaps waking him from his strange and restful slumber, but the last thing he wanted to do was wake the sleeping creature, and so he stole forward like a thief steals through the darkness of a silent building.

He was deep inside now, not entirely sure where he was, memory was such a hard thing to understand, and he sometimes found trouble pinpointing the origin. He knew it was…. Sort of all over the brain, from the brain stem to the cerebrum, though how it all connected was too complicated for him to figure out. Perhaps if he had more time or inclination he would have taken a look, but he didn’t really care,and thought it was best to leave the study of human brains to the humans and other extraterrestrials

If they wanted it, they would have to come and find it themselves. 

As he went he experienced smells and tastes and colors and light and dark. He felt happiness and fear and joy and sadness. All in one moment he could have rent the air with a scream or his heart might have burst out of his chest in joy. Either he was floating on a cloud or he was descending into the budapest depths of depraved sadness from which it felt that he could not crawl.

But it all passed as he pressed deeper and deeper into the human’s unconscious mind, searing and searching, sifting through folds and memories, trying to find…. What?

What was he trying to find.

He thought he had searched everything here, but he knew that could not be the case.

He knew he had gone to far when he made his way down and ran headlong into the brain stem. It was strange to think that there were parts of a human body they did not have active control over. For a moment he sat, watching as the brain ignited the beating of the heart and the slow expanding and contracting of the lungs. He felt as the brain initiated digestion through the lower body, and even felt in his own limbs as blood pulsed through the human's fingers. No, he did not think he would find it here.

Whatever he was looking for was… somewhere in the unconscious, he was sure of that, but where?

Memory perhaps.

But memory was such a large palace? The human mind, and even his own held onto so much that to look through it all would have taken a lifetime. But what kind of memory was he looking for anyway.

He pushed to think, and then delved further.

He saw airplanes and vast open sky. He saw faces and people and heard little snatches of conversation like you might walking down a hall past open doorways. Again he felt the welling of emotions rolling over him like waves in a sea, though he ignored them for the mostpart. He could almost visualise the human’s stored memories as if he was walking down a very long hallway that grew darker and darker the longer he went, and the closer they got towards the end the more fleeing and confused the memories became until thy were nothing more than shadows and flickered memories of color and light, but still…. There seemed to be something beyond. 

WIth trepidation, he continued his way down the proverbial hallway, until he had made his way towards the end and finally stopped just before the widening blackness.

There was nothing here

Nothing here but a single hair-thin thread that ran back into the darkness.

He looked at that thread, looked away and then slowly began to back his way out of the human’s mind. He did not want to follow that thread, did not want to know where it might lead. A horrible feeling was welling up inside him, and he was not interested in finding out despite his general proclivity towards getting himself into other people’s business.

He continued to back away until he found himself back inside his own head sitting there staring at the net of electricity that crisscrossed the human’s brain. And from there he turned musingly, away from the sleeping figure and back towards the rest of the ship. 

He had to know.

Conn had to know that it wasn’t just a fluke, but wasn’t sure what it would mean if he did discover it.

He needed another human.

And he found that human lying flat on his back in one of the shared rooms, mouth open and drooling rather theatrically. Conn almost wondered if he was pretending to be asleep, but upon seeing the activity of his brain he knew it wasn’t faking. 

He picked this human specifically because of his straightforward he was. He wasn’t confused, he wasn’t complicated, and he wasn’t holding some deep dark secret -- Conn knew he had already checked.

So he leaned forward and into it driving down through his thoughts and emotions until he reached the haway of memory. It was just like before, in the same general place. Stepping inside he could hear the sound of laughter, see faces, and heard the sharp cutting of metal over ice. Spotlights danced in the distance, and music played from somewhere unknown.

And there he went down the years, listening to the strange babble of human language, two of them overlapping and conjoining in this human’s mind. He could see the darkness at the end of the hallway and paused. What did he expect to find there? That same strange thread that led into nothing?

Did he expect to meet something other than himself wandering the maze-like hallways of the human head.

He wasn’t entirely sure.

A pat of him wanted to turn back, but he kept moving forward, watching flickering lights. Someone was singing happy birthday in the background, and he watched a little flame flick over a cake before he passed by. The next few memories were fleeing, and based on their edges he could see that they were slowly beginning to decay, as if the darkness was reaching up to grab it.

And there he stopped.

At first he sensed nothing, just the flat blackness where memory terminated into a vast void, and he was relieved, but then, not moments later he saw it. A silver thread of light so delicate it might have been a hair cut in half, but it was there, and as he stared at it, he could see where it vanished into the blackness.

He stepped away.

This was…. Something strange, something…. Wrong

Did all the humans have these.

He turned and fled from the marine’s brain, and down the hall to where Dr. Katie slept. He didn’t even bother going slowly, but plunged into her mind rolling with facts and figures as she slept. In her memories he passed by medical school, and high school, and her childhood until he drew to a skidding stop just before the blackness, where he found the same razor thin thread.

What did this mean? Where did it go.

He might have followed but he was too afraid with what he might find to look. He backed out and found himself floating in a dead and silent hallway surrounded on all sides by the blazing inner life of sleeping humans. 

He shrunk back not sure what he was fleeing from but backpedalled until a door opened at his back and he slipped inside.

He stared at the door waiting and listening.

“Conn, is everything alright.”

He turned on the spot freezing in palace as he saw the human staring at him from behind his desk, face awash with delicate yellow light from the lamp by his side. Dr. Adric sat, hands crossed in front of him, pen resting on the desk beside him.

Conn went to back away, but ended up bumping into the wall.

Dr Adric didn’t move

Conn could see that the man could sense his fear, as easy as sunlight on a cloudless day.

“Is this about what happened last week Conn, you've been asleep for a while now. Perhaps I should call Dr. krill.”

“No.”

Conn’s own mechanical voice was rather strange as heard through the doctor’s head. Conn couldn’t hear in the traditional sense, but had to read it through the minds of others. The translation gloves on his hands lit up with his response and then went dark again.

Dr Adric paused, tilted his head, frowned, “I’d ask you to sit down, but thats not really something you do, is it?.”

Looking into the man’s head Conn cut him off, “I’m not a human, your psychology won’t ork on me.”

Adric smiled, “I have trained in alien psychological crisis prevention as well, but I am sure talking to me for a few minutes won’t hurt.”

 Conn stared, and doctor Adric stared back 

Usually , Conn wouldn’t have said anything  preferring to keep his secrets, just that, secret.

But he was too confused and too frightened to continue like this, so he floated closer to the human, knowing that, somewhere deep inside, it was holding some sort of secret.

“Something is wrong with you.”

Dr Adric frowned, “Me personally or-”

“No, all of you humans, ever last one of you. I can see it. Hiding something inside your heads just past the barrier of memory. There is something in there.”

Dr Adric leaned back in his seat and frowned, “What makes you say that.”

“Because I looked.”

Dr Adric frowned, “I knew that you looked into people’s heads, but I didn’t know that you dug that deep.”

“Your moral outrage does not interest me Dr. Adric. I want to know what I saw. Past the barrier of memory, I saw a thread leading into blackness. I do not know where it went and I do not wish to go looking.’

Dr Adric frowned, and crossed his hands, “I assure you Conn that I do not know what you are talking about. Memory is a strange thing for humans, every time we recall a memory that memory is changed and corrupted by our current mood, or even other memories that we recall it with. None of our memories are perfect representations of what happened. They degrade and fall apart over time, and sometimes they change to be completely different from the actual events. Unlike you, I am unable to walk my way down a hallway of memory, I can only recall the memory into my conscious mind and then send it back to be recorded into memory. I cannot visit the areas of the brain like you can.”

He paused and chuckled suddenly, “Isn’t that funny though.”

“What’s funny.” Conn demanded.

“Perhaps you have finally found the palace where the soul connects to the brain.” He began to laugh, a bright smile spilling across his face. Upon seeing conn staring at him, he waved a hand, “Sorry, it was a joke for psychologists and philosophers. For thousands of years humans have been looking for the exact location in the body where the soul meets the brain, all nonsense of course. I personally don’t believe in the soul, unless you can equate it to consciousness, but in that case we are nothing more than a net of electrical signals running along a bowl of fat and grey matter.” he leaned forward in his seat, “I encourage you to stop digging into people’s minds if you would, and perhaps you might find yourself more relaxed.”

Conn disagreed greatly, but the human didn’t have to know that.

He sat floating at the center of the room, staring at the man as he glanced back at his work, dark brown gold eyes flicking over the holoprojection below him.

How strange, nothing SEEMED sinister about him, at least not from here.

But perhaps he was the only one who could see it.

Humans.

It was always the humans.

Perhaps it was just these humans, but for some reason he doubted it.

Something was gong on here, and he was too afraid to find out what.

[omniswords]

Storm Soundtrack [Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng]

I'm so honored to have been part of @mlwriterzine , and even more honored to write about my two favorite things: Marinette's birthday, and Luka �� We just got permission to post our pieces, so here was mine.

Anyway, enjoy!

New York.

She was going to New York.

And she was eighteen.

Marinette had heard a lot about both of these things. That because she was eighteen, she could drive—except in New York she could have been driving at least a year ago. (Not that anyone drove in New York anyway, because it was, according to Mrs. Bourgeois, a total nightmare.) And because she was eighteen, she could drink—except in New York she’d have to wait three more years, the reason for which was beyond her, especially considering she wasn’t terribly keen on drinking in the first place. And because she was eighteen, she could play the lottery—and in that respect, at least New York was the same—but it didn’t mean much to her when she felt such a stinging guilt about getting money that she hadn’t really earned.

Somehow, it all already felt like too much, and she was only hours in. Still in the middle of her own birthday party, even. And the one thing that had not, and probably would not change, she noted grimly, was that she still didn’t know what to do when everyone gathered to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Seriously, what was she supposed to do? Sing along? Clap? Dance? Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave?

Did anyone know?

Marinette was more than relieved when the song ended—partly because it meant she didn’t have to just sit here awkwardly, and partly because it gave her a few moments of silence and darkness except for the candles on the cupcake arrangement in front of her. She gathered her hair back, closed her eyes, and at least tried to make a wish. She never knew what to wish for, either. The fact that she had friends, family, and her own health was enough of a blessing, but it was still fun to act a little mysterious if anyone asked about it. And besides, she could always say, sometime after she’d opened her gifts in the privacy of her room, that she’d gotten exactly what she wanted.

Because, well, it wasn’t a lie. She had gotten exactly what she wanted. She was happy with her best friends from middle and high school filling the apartment, with her father presenting her with a cupcake specially decorated with fondant and edible glitter, even with her grandmother coming all the way from Italy and offering to take her out for a nighttime motorcycle ride on the town. She was eighteen, and happy, and for the first time in a while, she felt like she’d really earned it.

There was a tap on her shoulder, and she jolted to attention so quickly she nearly dropped her cupcake. When she turned, though, relief flooded her at the sight of Luka standing there, with his easygoing smile and his guitar strapped to his back. His face was flushed, and his hair and clothes were starting to cling to him. It was hard to tell whether it was because of the end-of-July heat getting to him or the fact that he might have biked all the way to her house at top speed.

“Hey,” he said with a two-finger salute.

Marinette couldn’t help smiling up at him; somehow, she always forgot how tall he’d gotten over the years, how he stood proudly at almost six feet when she considered it a miracle that she’d broken past five. “You made it!” she chirped, having the foresight to set her cupcake down before she let him envelop her in a hug and kiss her on both cheeks.

“Of course I made it. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Not even for an extra shift.” He let go of her, gracing her with a wink.

Part of her wanted to laugh behind a hand, but there was too much of her that felt too guilty. This close, it wasn’t hard to catch the circles under Luka’s eyes. He’d been working himself ragged lately. He always had been, she knew; he felt like he had to earn his keep for most things the same way she did. But it seemed like it had been particularly hard on him, or like he’d been particularly hard on himself, since he graduated high school a couple of years ago. Like he wasn’t just trying to earn anymore—he was trying to provide.

Still, it never seemed like it was something he wanted to dwell on, or something he ever wanted her or anyone else to worry about. So if he dismissed it with a smile and a wink, or a message that he was just a bit tired, then what could she do about it but worry quietly?

Marinette nodded toward his guitar. “Do you want to play?” she asked. “Or do you want to put it up in my room so it’s safe?” Or do you need a nap? You definitely look like you could use a nap. Oh God, wait, I’m not inviting you like that, I promise—

“I can keep it upstairs for now,” Luka agreed—to her relief, because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could think in those circles. With a casual wave to her parents and friends, he followed her up the stairs to her room. Marinette couldn’t help a scowl and a blush when she caught the knowing grin on Alya’s face.

Really? Really?

Together, they looked for a safe place to stow away his guitar. Luka ended up tucking it in the space between her work desk and her vanity, under her loft. “I always forget how cool your room is,” he said offhand. “It’s very… you.”

“Me?” Marinette looked around, brow furrowed. None of her stuff was packed away yet—she still had a month before she was supposed to leave—but it still looked like an organized clutter of fabric, sketches, decorations that only seemed to go together if you squinted. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “It’s got your vibes. A little scattered, but mostly put together, and cozy. Safe.” If he laughed then, it was to himself, and she could barely hear it. But she felt it. And she thought she liked feeling it. He wove past her, never studying one corner or wall for too long, until his eyes landed on the skylight. “Is that how you get up to your balcony?”

“Huh? Oh… Yeah!” Marinette was halfway up the steps to her bed before she realized what she was doing, and she managed an awkward laugh. “I just climb right up, you know?”

This time, when Luka laughed, she could hear it and feel it. A rumble, a warmth in her stomach. “You must have some crazy upper body strength.” He paused, running his hand along the banister. “Say… If it wouldn’t be weird, any chance I could meet you up there after this is over?”

“After?” The question shouldn’t have stunned her as much as it did, or make her blush as much as it did; that wasn’t the summer heat she was feeling in her cheeks. “Uh, yeah! After! Sure, yes… Cool.”

Luka was still smiling, even as his voice dropped to a murmur. “Cool,” he said, though it sounded more like a breath. As he slipped past her and jogged down the stairs back to the party, Marinette couldn’t help the way her gaze lingered after him. Even if it did take a moment for it to really sink in.

Cool.

Cool, cool, cool.

Marinette was most definitely not cool.

———

The funny thing was, the more Luka seemed to change and grow into himself—taking the bac, finishing high school, kicking up his work to full-time and then some—the more most of him seemed to stay the same. He made nice with practically everyone; he let Juleka get seconds on the cupcakes before he’d even had firsts; he tapped his toes to whatever music was playing and drummed his fingers along the armrest of the couch like it was a keyboard or the neck of his guitar. And he insisted, as the party wound down and her other friends and family were leaving, on helping her parents clean the apartment so they could rest easy. “Ma may be the champion of messes and chaos at home,” he said with a casual shrug, “But she still taught me to pull my own weight as soon as I could walk.”

It sounded right, and Marinette couldn’t tell who was smiling wider: her, or her father.

Probably her.

Of course it’d be her.

He was good at pulling his weight, though, lugging around a large trash bag and wrapping up trash in the vinyl tablecloth they wouldn’t be using again. It was… sweet. Almost as sweet as the times that he would pause in the middle of some task, smile at her from across the room, and then turn right back to his work. He’d been doing that for years now, and it still made her stomach flutter—sometimes when she didn’t want it to. Most of the time, she’d started to realize, she did want it to.

“Will you be safe getting home, Luka?” Marinette’s mother called from the kitchen over the sound of rushing water. “I know you told your sister not to wait up for you.”

“I’ll be fine,” he replied, casual and calm as always as he tied off the trash bag and handed it to her father. “I just have to get my guitar from upstairs. Thank you for letting me stay.”

Marinette would swear that, on his way to the dumpster outside, her father was watching her suspiciously as she and Luka scurried up the stairs to her room, as though she wasn’t going to be on her own an entire ocean away in a matter of weeks. She understood her father, she really did, but he didn’t always have to be so… adamant, about how he’d always see her as his little girl. At least he’d had the good sense not to say so during the party. She hoped he’d have the good sense not to say anything after Luka left, too.

Luka’s guitar was tucked away right where he left it. He took it by the neck and made for the stairs that led up to her balcony. “Can we?” he asked, actually sounding halfway uncertain. “I’ve never been up there before.”

She nodded so fast she was afraid her head might come clean off, but she managed to laugh at herself with him, however nervous. She followed him up the steps, hoisting herself up onto the balcony; Luka lagged behind, not just to hand off his guitar to her, but also to toss his shoes up and climb up after them. “Didn’t wanna step on your blankets with my sneakers. Who knows what they’ve stepped in.”

Honestly, Marinette was too busy staring in awe at how easily he’d pushed himself up to care about that. Or about the heat, even this late at night, whipping across her skin. Had he always had muscles like that? And when did that snake tattoo get there?

He offered her a sheepish shrug as he closed the latch; of course he’d noticed her staring. “Boat,” was all he said in explanation as he pulled on his sneakers and tied them up again. He held out both hands for the guitar, and she gave it to him so mechanically that she’d barely realized she’d done it.

“So, um…” Now the end of July was getting to her; she had to shrug out of her flannel and tie it around her waist and put up her hair to keep it from tickling and clinging to the back of her neck. She hoped he didn’t mind, but she always got the sense he thought candid fit her best. “What’d you want to come up here for?”

Luka tilted his head. “I wanted to give you your present.” As though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Almost instantly, Marinette’s stomach lurched. A gift? For her? In private? “Luka,” she began, though her insistence sounded weak, “you know you didn’t have to—”

“I wanted to.” He shrugged again. “Is that okay?”

“I… Yeah, of course it’s okay. I’m not gonna tell you it’s not okay—”

He laughed under his breath; it should have flustered her, but, instead, she only felt more comfortable. Strangely so. “Okay,” he said. “Get comfy.”

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t ask questions, no matter how much she wanted to. She only settled in her deck chair, keeping her eyes on him as she grabbed a nearby hand fan. It kept her cool, sure, but more than anything it gave her hands something to do. For some reason, they always needed that, especially when she was asked to do mostly nothing. She only fanned herself faster when he fished out a pick and readjusted his guitar in his lap, poised to play.

Oh, God.

A song. She should have known.

The summer heat meant that Luka needed some extra time to tune the guitar, but he did it with such a practiced hand that Marinette couldn’t help but be impressed, even after all these years of knowing him. With one last strum, he was ready, and already she felt it soothing the pit of her heart. “All right,” he murmured. “Here goes.”

She didn’t know whether to close her eyes and let the music flow through her, or keep her eyes open and watch it come to life in him instead. The song, low and easygoing, made the choice for her, calmed her into a half-lidded lull and slowed her hand. She heard rain in how he played, the patter of it against skylights and window panes, the rumble of a summer evening thunderstorm in the low tones. She heard it as much as she felt it in her heart. And even though her gaze caught on the way his fingers danced along the fretboard, and the way he picked at those strings, she lingered on his face much more. How he didn’t even have to look at his own instrument to know so intimately how it worked. How he chewed on his lip, so focused, that it’d probably be swollen and red by the time he was done. Maybe most importantly, how deep the circles and lines under his eyes ran into his skin.

He hadn’t been running himself ragged for work.

He’d been running himself ragged for her.

When Luka finished, soft and slow, he had a smile on his face that so easily matched his own music—that so easily disappeared when he met her eyes. “Marinette,” he said, looking frozen. “You’re crying.”

She hadn’t realized it until then, but now that he’d said something she could feel her own tears, heavy and trickling down her cheeks. Hastily, she rubbed them away with the sleeve of her sweater. “Sorry,” she whispered. “It was just… really beautiful, I don’t know what to say. It made me want to hear it all the time. It made me want to…”

To stay in Paris a little longer.

To say all the things she should have said months ago. Maybe years ago.

To hold his hand, and sit where his guitar sits, and let him wipe the tears away, and swallow up all the times he’d told her he wanted to play music that sounded just like her, and—

“Marinette?”

She shook her head and swallowed hard. Sat up straight, and moved to sit in front of him, until their bare knees bumped together in the night. She could reach for his hand, but she didn’t. “Can you play it again?”

[artificialqueens]

What Baking Can Do (Rosnali) - Athena2

Summary: Rosé keeps making food for Denali as a way of expressing her crush, not knowing that Denali feels the same way.

A/N: Writing has been slow for me lately, but I'm glad I was able to finish this! It's basically just pure fluff, and I hope you enjoy! Please leave some feedback if you'd like, I really appreciate it! Thank you to Writ for betaing!

Title from the song from Waitress because I'm basic.

Rosé might live in the city now, but in the small southern town where she spent most of her childhood, every woman had an arsenal of pie and casserole recipes to whip out at a moment’s notice for birthdays, funerals, and new neighbors.

Rosé just so happens to have a new neighbor, and as she knocks on the door, a fresh strawberry pie in one hand, she feels the pride her mother must have felt in welcoming someone new, giving them a nice gift.

Even if she’s already friends with the new neighbor she’s welcoming.

“You didn’t have to do this, Rosie,” Denali says as she takes the pie, a huge smile on her face showing her dimples. “I mean, we’re already friends. Hell, I should make you something for telling me about this apartment in the first place.”

It’s true that Rosé had gone right to Denali when she found out the apartment was up for sale, knowing that she and her roommate Kahmora hated the tiny apartment they had, with the shower that always broke and the heat that never went on. She was just helping out a friend. A friend she’s just happened to have a crush on for a year now, since the night Jan introduced them at some club.

“It’s nothing,” Rosé insists. “You know I like to bake.”

“Why complain, Denali?” Kahmora asks. “It’s food that’s actually edible.”

“My food is perfectly edible!” Denali sputters. She bites her lip as Kahmora stares, and nods in admittance to herself. “Look, no one’s ever died from eating my cooking.”

“No one’s ever really enjoyed it, either,” Kahmora mumbles under her breath.

Rosé holds back a smile. Denali’s struggles in the kitchen have been well-known in the time Rosé’s known her, with Rosé’s favorite being the pancakes that Denali somehow burnt and left raw at the same time. She’s always been so busy with skating and work that she never got much practice at cooking, and Rosé pushes away the thought of teaching her, of her hand curling around Denali's as they mix ingredients.

“Keep mumbling, Kahmora. Maybe I’ll eat the whole pie myself.”

“I’ll see you, Denali.” Rosé leaves them to fight over the pie and heads back down the hall, passing apartments full of people she’d welcomed with food at one point. There’s Kylie and her roommates Ra’jah and Scarlet, who loved the peach cobbler Rosé made. Then Brooke and Vanessa, who demolished her chocolate cake, next door to Raja and Manila, who she still makes almond tarts for from time to time. It’s Rosé’s favorite part of making something, really--to have someone love it so much. Rosé thinks of the smile on Denali’s face and knows this won’t be the last time she makes her something.

—-

Rosé’s normally much smoother, more confident. If Denali were anyone else, Rosé would’ve been open about her crush and already asked her out months ago. But there’s something different about Denali, something that makes Rosé hesitant to take such a leap, to confess her feelings, because if it ruins things between them, then she’d lose a friend she really cares about.

Food is safer than feelings, so Rosé ignores everything and busies herself in making dinner, not realizing how much spaghetti she’s making until it’s all piled in the bowl. There’s enough to feed a village, even after she and Jan eat. Rosé stares at the bowl and figures Denali wouldn’t mind some.

Her heart leaps into her throat when Denali opens the door. Her hair is up in a bun and she looks adorable in her tie dye sweatshirt, soft and sweet in a way that makes Rosé’s chest hurt.

“I made way too much food,” Rosé says, handing Denali the bowl. “I didn’t want to waste it, so I figured I’d give you some.”

“Thank you.” Denali flashes her dimples. “Hey, do you want to come in? Kahmora’s out with some friends.”

“Sure.” Rosé follows close behind Denali, moving past boxes she hasn't unpacked yet on their way to the kitchen. The apartment feels like Denali already, with sneakers by the door and video games in the living room.

Denali hums with joy as she eats the first bite, and Rosé grins, her body buzzing with that rush of someone loving what she made. No matter how many times it happens, it will always be special to her.

“How was work?” Rosé asks.

“It was good! My coffee tasted so good this morning, and all my lessons went well, and I saw this adorable dog—not as adorable as you, Donut,” Denali adds to her dog, who’s curled up under the table.

Rosé just laughs as Denali talks, and it’s easy. So easy. Easy being friends like this, just talking and laughing. Watching Denali’s eyes widen and listen to her laugh just makes Rosé like her more, but it also makes her want to hold back on admitting her crush a bit more. Because the more she likes Denali, the more she has to lose if things go wrong.

Denali bursts into laughter as Rosé shares stories of her day, and it’s enough.

—-

It’s nice, knowing Denali is open to accepting leftovers. Rosé usually makes small recipes for her and Jan, and it’s nice to make whatever she wants, even if it feeds a crowd, and just bring some down the hall instead of giving herself a headache trying to halve fractions of ingredients.

She makes chicken and potatoes and cookies and brownies, extras carefully wrapped up and delivered to Denali, each one letting them have time to talk and just be around each other. They talk about work, about friends, about funny things Donut did that day. And Rosé loves every second of it.

Rosé finds herself making more things than she probably should, but she can’t help it. Cooking started out as a stress reliever for her, when she and Jan were up to their eyes in paperwork trying to open the dance and vocal studio. Jan suggested she make something to relax, and Rosé remembered how much she had loved to be at her mother’s side when she was little, watching her roll out pie crust. She remembered how much she loved creating something out of a pile of ingredients, the soothing repetition of mixing batter, the joy of watching someone eat what she made.

She’s made things all the time since, and part of her knows she’s making more now just so she can give them to Denali. Jan’s always teased her for baking enough to run a bakery when she’s in love, and Rosé doesn’t want to admit how true it is. Because baking is a form of love for her, a way of transforming her love and work into something people can eat. A way of caring for them and loving them at the same time.

Not that Denali knows any of that.

---

Denali sighs as she shuffles to the elevator after the skating class from hell. She had parents almost fight her because costumes haven’t come in yet, like Denali controls the mail, then yell at her some more for not giving their kid the solo in the group performance.

Rosé slips in the elevator with her, and Denali smiles a bit just seeing her, with her big green eyes and soft red waves. Rosé always makes her happy, since the night they met, and being around her just feels right to Denali. So right that Denali likes to invite her in when she drops off food, just for an excuse to spend more time with her. So right that Denali wishes they could do it all the time, that they could always be close, maybe even close enough to kiss--but no, they’re nothing more than friends. Especially not when Denali is standing here in old sweatpants and smelling like a skating rink locker room. How could Rosé ever like her back anyway? She makes fancy pastries with fancy names and Denali almost set ramen on fire once.

“Rough day?” Rosé asks.

Denali groans as her answer. “If I ever become a parent, please don’t let me be like the ones at the skating rink.”

Rosé snorts. “Tell me about it. I’ve had parents follow me to the parking lot because their kid isn’t famous yet.”

Denali manages a smile. It’s nice to know she isn’t the only one, that someone else understands.

“Is there anything I can do?” Rosé asks.

Denali’s heart flutters at how she’s always so caring, so kind. Just friends, they’re just friends. “I don’t think so. I’ll probably just take a bath and watch TV. Thanks, though.”

“Of course.”

They head to their own apartments, and Denali soaks in the tub until the water runs cold, the stress of the day leaving her.

There’s a knock on her door as she turns on the TV. Denali groans and throws the door open, only to find a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the welcome mat.

Still warm.

---

Rosé turns down the hall and almost smacks into her neighbor, Kylie, who’s on her way to walk her dog. Gizmo licks happily at Rosé’s ankle, and she would pet him like she normally does, but her hands are full of the pan that might be just a little too big, if Kylie’s staring is any indication.

“What’s that?”

“Mac and cheese I made for Denali.”

Kylie blinks at her. “Hun, are you sure that’s for Denali and not a school cafeteria?”

“Well, I mean, she can freeze it if she wants,” Rosé stammers.

“I hope she’s got a big freezer.” Kylie looks at her thoughtfully. Rosé’s always thought Kylie has some sixth sense, able to figure out your feelings and what you need to hear just from looking at you, and she’s about to be on the receiving end of it. “You should tell her,” Kylie says softly.

Rosé doesn’t bother to ask how she knows. “I don’t—I don’t want to lose her if she doesn’t feel the same way,” Rosé says, eyes on the floor.

“I don’t think you have to worry.” Kylie heads for the stairs, and Rosé stands in the hall like an idiot before taking a breath and going to Denali’s door.

Someday. Maybe someday she’ll tell her.

—-

Denali knocks on Rosé’s apartment, trying to calm her heart. There’s no reason for it to be racing like this, not when she’s knocked on Rosé’s door to bring back her food containers a dozen times. Not when she talks to Rosé almost every day.

Denali isn’t sure if she’s disappointed or relieved when Jan opens the door.

“I just wanted to bring Rosé her plate back,” Denali says.

Jan nods. “I’ll give it to her. You can come in, if you want. There’s some leftover blondies on the counter.”

Denali follows her inside, taking in the apartment with wide eyes like she’s never seen it before. Being in the kitchen feels special, like she’s in Rosé’s sacred space. Denali peeks at the soft pink stand mixer and utensils beside it, at the worn recipe box and well-used cookbooks on the other counter. She thinks of Rosé standing here, carefully measuring out ingredients, flour in her red hair, and her heart tugs painfully. What she would give to be around Rosé in her element like this, at her side while she cooks. “She really likes cooking, huh?”

Jan rolls her eyes. “You have no idea. She loves cooking for people, especially when she really likes them. It’s basically her love language. When she was with her last girlfriend, this place was like a freaking bakery. Not that I’m complaining, because her stuff is amazing. Even if she makes a giant mess of the place.”

“It is,” Denali says, but then she freezes as Jan’s words hit. Especially when she really likes them. Does that mean Rosé likes her? Likes her as more than a friend, if she cooks this much when she really likes someone? If cooking is her love language? It’s normal for Rosé to cook a lot, Jan said so. And Rosé still cooks for other people, has her friend Lagoona over for dinner every week. But Denali thinks of how many carefully-wrapped plates and full containers Rosé has given her the past few months, juicy chicken and thick soups and buttery shortbread cookies, and knows it’s more than anyone else has gotten. Rosé likes her, and the food is her way of showing it.

Denali usually isn’t so oblivious. Then again, she usually isn’t so hesitant around her crushes either. But maybe she was so oblivious and hesitant with Rosé because she didn’t possibly think Rosé could like her back.

But Rosé does. She likes Denali.

And if food is love to Rosé, then Denali has an idea.

---

Rosé hums as she unlocks her apartment. Jan has a date tonight, so it’s just her, and she’s really in the mood for takeout. Maybe she’ll order from that Chinese place--

Rosé drops her keys when sees someone in the apartment, and she drops her heart when she realizes the person is Denali. Denali, who’s standing in her living room for some reason.

“Um, not that I’m not happy to see you, Denali,” Rosé says, easing her way inside, “But what the hell?”

Denali’s cheeks are flushed and some hair has escaped her ponytail, and her smile is one of the brightest she’s ever seen. “Jan let me in so I could surprise you.”

“Well, I’m definitely surprised.”

“But not surprised enough,” Denali gloats.

“There’s more? Haven’t I had enough near-heart attacks today?”

Denali just smirks and leads her into the kitchen, where Rosé sees the table laid out with candles and a fancy tablecloth and huge platters of food.

“I thought I’d cook for you for a change,” Denali says. “I’m not the greatest, but they’re my mom’s recipes and I had her FaceTime me to help, and I don’t think you’ll get food poisoning or anything—“

“You cooked for me,” Rosé says softly, looking at Denali in awe.

“I did.” Denali bites her lip, and her cheeks flush even more. “Rosé, I--I realized how much cooking means to you. And what you were trying to tell me with your food. I want to tell you that I...I feel the same way. I like you, I’m trying to say, and that’s why I wanted to cook for you.”

Rosé reaches for Denali’s hand, squeezing it gently for proof that this is real. That Denali really does like her too. That Denali took all the love Rosé puts into her cooking and gave it back to her. “I like you so much, Denali. For a while now. I just wasn’t sure if you--”

“Well I wasn’t sure if you would like me,” Denali laughs softly.

Rosé snorts. “We could’ve done this a while ago if we weren’t idiots.”

“But we’re doing it now.” And then Denali is leaning in, her lips meeting Rosé’s like coming home. Denali’s kiss is soft and sweet, just like her, warm and passionate yet still gentle. It’s everything Rosé has dreamt of, and she can’t resist going back in for another.

And another.

“Hey, the food’s gonna get cold,” Denali says, and they laugh all the way to the table.

[lesbian-fabray]

This is just something i wrote recently

Quick Description: Dot has conversations with all of the girls.

It does get pretty angsty, especially towards the end.

It’s also pretty long. Like, really, really long.

I’m really proud of it. Especially of the parts focused on Leah and on Rachel.

I had to type this on my phone because my computers a little bitch, so I hope there aren’t too many typos.

There is a death of one of the girls in this story, so if that isn’t something you want to read or think about, you probably won’t like this.

Also, Trigger Warning: There is no outright mention or description of suicide, but Becca is brought up and it is pretty heavily implied.

— — — — — — — —

I’ll Listen

It’s the third night on the island when they move to the cave.

It’s been a rough day for Dot. She’s spent the day sorting shit out with Shelby and thinking about her dad and her role on the island and everyone’s safety. Now, she sits on the sand outside the cave and stares out at the water.

“Dottie? It’s getting late.”

Dot looked back at where Shelby was standing, a few feet away.

“I’ll be there in a couple minutes, Shelby.” She watched on as the blonde’s eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Seriously, Shelby, I’ll be fine. I promise.” Shelby nods and heads back to the cave. Dot moves down to the water and looks down at her reflection.

“It’s time to buck up, Dot. These girls, as annoying as some of them are, are your family for the time being. You’ve gotta keep them safe, ‘cause they most certainly won’t do it themselves. Let’s be real, they can’t.”

She looks up and exhales, running her hand through her hair. She knew she had to take care of herself, and she would, but she had to take care of these girls.

She gets up and walks back to the cave. It was very dark inside, and it was hard to see, but she looked over at the sleeping forms of the other girls. She feels a wave of emotion. She feels the closest to being home that she’s felt since her father passed. She swallows down those emotions and nods, then heads to bed.

— — — — — — — —

It’s the seventh night on the island when Jeanette’s body goes missing. Everyone seems to accept the tide theory and move on. Everyone except Leah, that is.

In all honesty, Leah was kinda losing it. Dot couldn’t tell exactly what was going on with her, but she knew that it was eating at the girl, and she knew it was getting really bad.

When Dot approached her, Leah was sitting at the edge of their little camp, bouncing her leg and chewing on her bottom lip. Dot gently sat down next to the girl. She didn’t announce her presence or really even say anything, but she knew that Leah knew she was there to listen. The taller girl let out a shaky breath.

“Something just feels wrong, Dot. I’m trying so hard to figure out what it is, but I just can’t, and that’s fucking terrifying.” She sounded close to tears. Hell, maybe she was crying. Dot wasn’t going to ask. She knew that wasn’t what Leah needed.

“I- I just feel so scared, and I feel like there’s something fucking insidious about this place and I feel like I’m going crazy and there’s nothing I can do to stop it and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

Dot reached out and placed a hand on Leah’s knee.

“I don’t think you’re crazy. This place, it’s getting to all of us. It makes sense you’re feeling a little paranoid. This is a fucking nightmare, Leah, of course not everyone’s going to handle it great.”

Leah nods. “Yeah you’re probably right.” The two of them sit in silence until Leah starts crying again.

“She said she was sorry before she died, Dot. She fucking apologized. It wasn’t like this was her fault. She apologized before she died, and now her body is just fucking gone.”

Dot didn’t really know what to say. “Wow. That’s heavy.”

“Yeah.” Silence again. “I just really want to be alone right now.”

Dot gets up and nods. She’s worried, but she doesn’t want to press.

“Well, if you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

— — — — — — — —

It’s the twelfth night on the island when Shelby saves Toni and Martha collapses.

Dot and Leah had gone out to search for medicine for Martha and managed to find the other Halophen. They’d given it to her and she was now resting.

Leah went to go to bed, so Dot and Toni were left as the only ones awake. Toni was sitting on the ground, her hands playing with the sand. Her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks were wet from crying. Dot walked over and stood a few feet away from her, just trying to get a read on her. Toni looked up at her. “Hey,” she said, her voice hoarse. Dot took this as permission to sit down.

“How’re you holding up? Today’s been pretty eventful, especially for you.”

Toni chuckled weakly. “Not great, if I’m honest. I know she’s got the meds in her system, but I’m really fucking scared for Marty. Her and her parents are really the only family I have, and I don’t know what I would do without her. And she’s just so good, deep down. She makes the world a less shitty place by being in it.” She exhales angrily. “What the fuck was Shelby thinking? Why would she save me and not Marty? She’s the one who deserved to be saved. Not me. I hurt people and I lose control. Martha never does that. She doesn’t hurt people.”

Part of Dot wants to reach out and give Toni a hug or something, but it doesn’t seem like it would help her, so she stays where she is.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you are worth saving, Toni. I see that, and so do Martha and Shelby and the rest of the girls. I know it’s scary right now, but I promise Martha will make it through this. And when she does, I think you should tell her you appreciate her.”

They sit in silence for a bit until Dot gets up and leaves Toni with time and space to think.

— — — — — — — —

It’s the fifteenth day on the island when everyone gets in a fight and a plane passes by.

Most of the girls are in good spirits, and they’re too wrapped up in their own excitement to notice that Shelby isn’t.

As the chaos dies down to a general happiness, Dot goes to sit with Nora, who is quiet, but smiling.

“So, uh, can I ask what started that fight in the first place?”

Nora grimaces a little. “Rachel was pushing too hard. She doesn’t realize not everyone has the same… philosophy as her. I don’t think she knows what I sacrifice for her.”

Dot nods. “Have you ever told her that?” Nora looks away, like she’s running through all her conversations with Rachel, searching for that. “No. I don’t think it would go well.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Nora nods slowly, as if she’s considering it. “I think I will try that. Thanks.”

Dot gets up, gives Nora a small smile, and goes to do her own thing.

— — — — — — — —

It’s the sixteenth night on the island when Shelby snaps and takes Fatin’s scissors to her hair.

About half an hour ago, if Dot’s guessing, Leah came back from talking to Shelby. Dot wants to go talk to her too, but she doesn’t want to startle or overwhelm her. She walks over to where Shelby is laying in the sand and lays down next to her.

Shelby briefly glances over at her. “Hey Dottie,” she says in a small voice. Dot offers up a sympathetic smile. “Hey Shelby.” She exhales.

“I know I said I don’t dig or press to know what’s wrong, and that’s true. I don’t. But I want to try and make sure that you’re okay. Or going to be okay. As okay as you can be, given everything. I just- I won’t push, but I don’t want you to let whatever’s eating at you swallow you whole.”

Shelby stays quiet for a long while. So long that Dot almost gets up and leaves.

“Dottie, do you remember Becca Gilroy from back home?” Shelby sounds sad when she asks. Well, sadder than she already sounded.

Dot did remember Becca. Kind of. She was never close with her. They maybe spoke once or twice, in a class or something, when Becca still went to their school. Mainly, Dot remembered her as a headline. As a candlelight vigil. As a silence over their town.

“Yeah, I remember Becca.”

It almost seemed like Shelby felt a moment of peace at the idea that Becca was remembered. Almost. The tears in her eyes suggested that was not true.

Dot isn’t going to push, even though she really wants to.

“We were- we were close. I lo-,” Shelby stops herself. “She was my best friend.” She lets a single sob slip out. “I’m why she’s gone. It’s my fault. I was just so scared, Dottie. I was scared and I hurt her and that’s why she’s gone. And I’m still so scared. I don’t want to hurt anyone again. I don’t want to be afraid anymore”

Dot takes a minute to herself to process what Shelby’s saying and gather her thoughts.

“Fear is a nasty son of a bitch, Shelby. I know you’re afraid. I don’t know why, but that’s not my place. What I do know is that you can’t let it control you. But I don’t blame you. And I can guarantee Becca doesn’t either. I don’t know what you did that you think caused her to do what she did, but it takes a lot to make someone reach that point. I’m sure there was more going on than anyone knew. It’s not your fault.”

When Shelby said, “thank you,” Dot knew she meant it, even though she was sure Shelby didn’t believe her.

She was silent for a while. “I think I’d like to be alone for now, Dottie.” Dot nodded and got up to leave. “Thank you, though. For trying to help.”

— — — — — — — —

It’s the twenty-second day on the island when Leah almost drowns herself.

Dot and Fatin sit in the beach, watching over Leah, who is asleep a couple feet away. Fatin’s eyes haven’t left Leah the entire time they’ve been sitting there.

“I’m worried about her.”

Dot looks up when Fatin breaks the silence. “Yeah. I think we all are.”

Fatin looks like she wants to make some kind of counter argument or elaboration, but she doesn’t. Instead, she changes the subject. “Are you doing okay? Do I need to worry about you booking it into the ocean, Dorothy?”

It isn’t really that funny, but Dot knows Fatin’s just trying to avoid dealing with shit, so she laughs. “I’m doing as okay as I can, given the situation.” Fatin nods and smiles.

Silence returns as Fatin goes back to staring at Leah.

Dot doesn’t push, and Fatin doesn’t share, so the silence stays.

— — — — — — — —

It’s the twenty-third day in the island when Martha kills the goat.

A lot more happened that day, but none of them were really ready to talk about it. It really to talk at all. Everyone sat in silence, just taking everything in.

Fatin and Leah were huddled together, kind of nestled into Dot’s side. Shelby and Toni were sitting together, hands barely touching in the sand. Every couple of minutes, Toni would glance over to Martha, who was sitting away from the group, staring off into the distance. Rachel and Nora were laying on makeshift cots the girls had made. The two were badly injured, and Dot and Shelby had been working in shifts to take care of them. It was Shelby’s shift now, and she was watching them out of the corner of her eye.

Dot wiggled her way away from Leah and Fatin and made her way over to Martha. She had been pretty quiet all day, and Dot understood why, and she respected that. She thought back to their conversation earlier, and she thought back to her dad. She sat down next to her, and neither girl said anything.

“I’m going to tell you something, and it’s not something I really talk about and I’m not going to talk about it again after this, but I’m going to talk about it now, because I think it may help.”

Martha looked over at her with sad, hopeful eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

“I don’t fully understand what you’re going through, and I don’t think I ever will, if I’m being 100% honest, but that doesn’t mean I can’t kind of relate.” Martha nodded, as if telling Dot to continue. “I lost my dad recently. He’d been sick for a while.” Martha, even now, when she’s dealing with so much of her own, reached out to comfort her. “I’m sorry, Dot.”

Dot had tears in her eyes, but her goal now wasn’t to be comforted, so she held them back. “Thanks.” She let silence fall over them briefly. “I took care of him for heats. It was kind of all I did. It was fucking rough, to put it lightly. My dad, he told me so many times that I deserved for my life to be more than just taking care of him, and he made me… he made me let go. He made me let go, because he knew it was what I needed to do to survive.”

They stay quiet for a moment.

“And he was right.”

Once again, silence. This time, it lasts for a while, until Martha breaks it.

“Thank you.”

She turns and gives Dot a hug, thanks her again, and leaves to go sit with Shelby and Toni.

— — — — — — —

It’s the twenty-fifth night on the island when they bury Nora.

It was rough on everyone. They were all trying to find comfort in each other, and in Nora’s memory, except Rachel.

Rachel had isolated herself from the group at this point. No one blamed her. She had been on, like, a looped speed-run of every stage of grief except acceptance the whole day. Right now, it seems like she’s mostly angry.

It’s understandable, it really is.

Everyone else starts to drift off to sleep, leaving Dot and Rachel as the only ones awake. Dot was staring off at the water, feeling like she failed her family. She knew that Shelby was probably feeling the same right now, but likely to a lesser degree. Shelby wasn’t the one who was responsible for everyone. Dot was. Or at least she felt like she was.

It was quiet when Dot heard Rachel crying.

She made her way over to the cot Rachel was resting on. She’d been through so much in the past few days, and Dot could barely even start to understand it.

Rachel saw Dot start to make her way over to her. “What the fuck do you want?,” she asked through her tears.

“I just want to make sure you’re not over here doing what I think you’re doing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Blaming yourself.”

Rachel scoffed.

“Shouldn’t I? If I hadn’t gone out in the water, she wouldn’t have got hurt in the first place. If I hadn’t… if my arm hadn’t… she would have got the medical attention she needed. It wouldn’t have been fucking split.” She’s quiet for a moment. “If i died, she wouldn’t have.”

From her face alone, Dot gets the feeling Rachel is feeling every emotion know to man. She gets it. To an extent.

“Don’t you think Nora would be feeling that same thing right now if that had happened?”

Silence.

“And don’t you think that, if you were there, you’d be telling her how wrong she was?”

“Yeah. Probably. I don’t know.”

“By that logic, it’d make sense to think Nora would tell you how wrong you are? That girl would probably try to pin it on herself.” At that, Rachel smiled. It was a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I know how easy it is to blame yourself, Rachel. Trust me, I do. But I also know Nora wouldn’t blame you.”

Rachel sniffles. “You wanna know something? When we were kids, I would do the stupidest shit. I’m talking, like, next level stupid shit, and Nora would always end up either hurt or she’d get in trouble with me because our parents didn’t know who did it. And I always just felt like shit after. Like I was the worst sister in the world and every single fucking time, Nora would just tell me it was okay. That she didn’t blame me. That she loved me. Look where that got her.” She sighs. “I know she wouldn’t blame me, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t.” She looks up, making eye contact with Dot.

“I know you’re trying to help, and you probably have a really fucking good point. I’m just not ready to hear it yet.”

Dot gives her a sympathetic look. She definitely understands that.

She stands up.

“Well, when you are, let me know and I’ll repeat it.”

— — — — — — —

It’s the thirtieth day on the island when Dot gets a day off.

Everyone’s off doing their tasks, or chores, or whatever you want to call it, and Dot’s left to think. She mainly just thinks about the girls and about her dad. About if he’d be proud of her.

She laughs weakly. She really does miss him, but right now she just focuses on the good and on the happiness attached to his memory.

In a poor imitation of him, she says to herself, “I am, Dottie. I’m so proud of you, taking care of those girls. I just want you to promise me you’ll take care of yourself like you take care of them, especially once you get off this damn island.”

She laughs and wipes the tears from her eyes.

“I will, Dad. I promise.”